He’s not just a retired Marine general but a man who knows the terrible personal consequences of war and who is not afraid to face them.

He also knows that protecting the homeland is about more than just deportation and building walls but winning hearts and minds in the Muslim world. Little wonder that anti-immigrant groups already dislike him.

But they cannot quibble with this Irish Catholic soldier’s knowledge and insight. This is a man who has witnessed first hand the pain and glory of war.

As Kevin Cullen pointed out in the Boston Globe, in 2010 Kelly’s son, First Lieutenant Robert Kelly, was killed when he stepped on a landmine while leading a platoon of Marines on a patrol in Afghanistan. He was 29.

Four days later Kelly, a Boston native, made an emotional speech to former soldiers at a Veteran’s Day event in a ballroom convention center in New Orleans, but never mentioned his son’s passing.

Instead, he focused on the shared sacrifice and duty all soldiers signed up to when they enlisted and the challenges all Americans face.

“As a nation, we were scared like we had not been scared for generations,” he said.

“Parents hugged their children to gain as much as to give comfort. Strangers embraced in the streets, stunned and crying on one another’s shoulders, seeking solace as much as to give it.

“Instantaneously, American patriotism soared not ‘as the last refuge’ as our national cynical class would say, but in the darkest times Americans seek refuge in family, and in country, remembering that strong men and women have always stepped forward to protect the nation when the need was dire, and it was so God awful dire that day and remains so today.

“There was, however, a small segment of America that made very different choices that day, actions the rest of America stood in awe of on 9/11 and every day since. The first were our firefighters and police, their ranks decimated that day as they ran towards not away from danger and certain death. They were doing what they’d sworn to do, ‘protect and serve’ and went to their graves having fulfilled their sacred oath.

“Then there was your Armed Forces,” he continued. “When future generations ask why America is still free and the heyday of Al Qaeda and their terrorist allies was counted in days rather than in centuries as the extremists themselves predicted, our hometown heroes – soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines – can say, ‘Because of me and people like me who risked all to protect millions who will never know my name.’

“As we sit here right now, we should not lose sight of the fact that America is at risk in a way it has never been before. Our enemy fights for an ideology based on an irrational hatred of who we are. Make no mistake about that no matter what certain elements of the ‘chattering classes’ relentlessly churn out. We did not start this fight, and it will not end until the extremists understand that we as a people will never lose our faith or our courage.

“If they persist, these terrorists and extremists and the nations that provide them sanctuary, they must know they will continue to be tracked down and captured or killed. America’s civilian and military protectors both here at home and overseas have . . . fought this enemy to a standstill and have never for a second wondered why. They know, and they are not afraid. Their struggle is your struggle.

“They hold in disdain those who claim to support them but not the cause that takes their innocence, their limbs, and even their lives.

“As a democracy, ‘We The People’ – and that by definition is every one of us – sent them away from home and hearth to fight our enemies. We are all responsible,” Kelly said.

“If anyone thinks you can somehow thank them for their service and not support the cause for which they fight – America’s survival – then they are lying to themselves and rationalizing away something in their lives. But, more importantly, they are slighting our warriors and mocking their commitment to the nation.

Trump plans to nominate retired Marine General John Kelly to lead the Department of Homeland Security, CBS News reports. pic.twitter.com/F7qNShUXda

“Since this generation’s ‘Day of Infamy’ the American military has handed our ruthless enemy defeat after defeat, but it will go on for years, if not decades, before this curse has been eradicated. We have done this by unceasing pursuit day and night into whatever miserable lair Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their allies might slither into.”

Kelly is not a partisan. He is a realist.

“We are at war and, like it or not, that is a fact,” he said on that day six years ago.

“It is not Bush’s war, and it is not Obama’s war. It is our war and we can’t run away from it. Even if we wanted to surrender, there is no one to surrender to. Our enemy is savage, offers absolutely no quarter, and has a single focus and that is either kill everyone of us here at home, or enslave us with a sick form of extremism that serves no God or purpose that decent men and women could ever grasp.

Mr. Trump taps General John Kelly as Homeland Security Secretary@Garrett_FoxNews has the latest from the White House transition-tune in NOW! pic.twitter.com/DWKoo1MkyK

“As Americans, we all dream and hope for peace, but we must be realistic and acknowledge that hope is never an option or course of action when the stakes are so high. Others are less realistic or less committed, or are working their own agendas, and look for ways to blame past presidents or in some other way to rationalize a way out of this war.

“The problem is our enemy is not willing to let us go. Regardless of how much we wish this nightmare would go away, our enemy will stay forever on the offensive until he hurts us so badly we surrender, or we kill him first.”

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2016-12-09T05:45:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/homepage/despite-trump-irish-win-j-1-visa-extension-for-three-yearsDespite Trump, Irish win J-1 visa extension for three years2016-12-07T04:09:36-05:00An agreement signed yesterday by the Irish government and the US State Department represents a small victory and stop-gap against one of the policy measures proposed by President-elect Donald Trump.

The 12-month Ireland Work and Travel Program, which enables Irish and US citizens between the ages of 18 and 35 who have graduated from second-level or third-level education to work and travel in each other’s respective countries, is safe for three more years.

Ireland’s Ambassador to the US, Anne Anderson, and Evan Ryan, Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, met in Washington to sign a memorandum of understanding between the two countries.

Since it was implemented in 2008, the visa program has been renewed every two years for two years, but yesterday’s agreement marked the first time it has been extended for three years.

This is thought to be in response to a campaign promise that appeared on Donald Trump’s campaign website in 2015 (and since deleted), which stated, "The J-1 visa jobs program for foreign youth will be terminated and replaced with a résumé bank for inner city youth provided to all corporate subscribers to the J-1 visa program."

“Over so many years, the J-1 Programs – including both the summer program and the 12 month program - have made a contribution which is hard to overstate. When our young people spend time in each other’s countries, at a formative period in their lives, the experience stays with them long into the future.

“Time and again, throughout my years here as Ambassador, I have heard from Irish political leaders, and decision-makers in every walk of life, about their J-1 experience in the US and the positive imprint it has left on them. The comments are almost always along the same lines: the experience has challenged them, helped them grow, left them with an enduring sense of warmth about this country. It is not that they will always necessarily agree with every aspect of American policy, but they will have a context in which to make an assessment, and a level of understanding they would not otherwise have.”

Assistant Secretary Ryan also brought up the benefits of the program, namely that “The J-1 Exchange Visitor Program provides opportunities for approximately 300,000 exchange visitors per year to experience the United States, its society and culture, and to engage with Americans in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

“Ireland plays a vital part in these exchanges, as one of the top sending countries for all J-1 programs. In 2015, more than 10,000 Irish exchange visitors came to the United States,” said Ryan, counting the students who traveled to the US on summer-long J-1 visas in her total.

Ambassador Anderson also spoke to the J-1 Summer program visa, which allows Irish college students to work in the US for four months at a time, typically during the summer break from school, and which the memorandum of understanding does not pertain to.

For 2016, restrictions for the summer J-1 visa increased, stipulating, for the first time, that applicants must have an employment opportunity lined up before they travel to the US. This brought numbers way down – from 7,000 in 2015 to 4, 200 this year.

Anderson defended the program as an important opportunity for all parties involved. “The J-1 Summer Program for fifty years has been a cherished rite of passage for so many young Irish people, and there can be few better examples of public diplomacy in action. The program attracts some of our best and brightest – before they leave, we remind them that they are ambassadors for Ireland; after they return, we see them develop a dual mandate: as well as being the face of Ireland in America, they help communicate America to Ireland.”

The Irish Ambassador also alluded to the new challenges ahead in a Trump presidency.

“We are on the threshold of a new Administration taking office in the United States, and we can anticipate that there will be a strong focus on immigration issues. As part of that debate, there is likely to be some consideration of exchange program and the role they play. Ireland will of course be making its case on the wider issues of immigration reform, but we will also be happy to share our tremendously positive experience of J-1 program.

“And our central message will be this: these J-1 programs are not just an act of generosity towards young people, although they certainly offer life changing experiences and opportunities. But they are about so much more than that – conferring mutual benefit, projecting soft power, and building enduring relationships.”

Did you or do you know anyone who spent time in the US or Ireland thanks to the J-1 visa? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section.

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2016-12-06T05:53:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/culture/entertainment/how-much-did-jackie-know-about-john-f-kennedy-s-affairsHow much did Jackie know about John F. Kennedy’s affairs?2016-12-07T04:09:48-05:00New details on the life of former First Lady Jackie Kennedy reveal she may have known more of her husband's extramarital affairs than had been previously assumed. Throughout their ten-year marriage, and even now decades after his death, rumor is rife regarding Kennedy's mistresses. Fascination with one of America’s most high-profile first couples refuses to abate.

With the release of “Jackie” this December, Natalie Portman’s portrayal of Jackie Kennedy in the weeks immediately after her husband’s assassination, interest around the First Lady and her relationship with her husband has surged as more information is revealed about Kennedy’s complicated marriage.

In a new feature in People Magazine, friends of the Kennedys and those who have written in depth about their lives reveal that Jackie Kennedy may have had an understanding with her husband regarding his affairs and knew of several of the women with whom he had relationships.

“It was a marriage of its time,” a friend told People Magazine.

“At the end of the day, Jack came back to Jackie – and that was it. They loved each other.”

“It was kinetic between them. She wasn’t trying to change him.”

“Jackie Style” author Pamela Keogh claims the example set by Jackie’s father, Wall Street stockbroker John Bouvier, set the tone for what the young woman would expect from her own marriage as a result of his affairs during his marriage to her mother.

“She came from a world where that is what men did, and it was accepted,” Keogh said.

“For these women, if they ever did discuss [their husbands’ infidelities], it was more like, ‘This is what’s going on; let’s go out and get the kids and get on a horse,’” agrees Cornelia Guest, a daughter of one of the First Lady’s close friends.

“They were much more pragmatic about the whole thing.”

“It was all just, you turn the other cheek.”

Jackie Kennedy had, in fact, even spoken to other people about several of her husband’s affairs, claims New York City gossip columnist Liz Smith.

“[Her friends] Truman Capote and Gore Vidal told me she knew all about Judith Exner [an alleged mistress] and everybody else, and that she read [my stories] on Judith with high interest,” Smith said.

Exner, who served as a conduit between JFK and mobster Sam Giancana, claimed she had an abortion after becoming pregnant with the President’s child, revealing details about their alleged affair in her 1977 memoir “My Story.” Kennedy is said to have been unsurprised by what the book revealed.

Jackie Kennedy was also seemingly aware of her husband's alleged affair with White House Staff member Priscilla Wear. According to Kennedy press aide Barbara Gamarekian, Jackie stated, “This is the girl that’s sleeping with my husband” while speaking in French to a Paris-Match reporter.

In keeping with the idea that Jack would always return to Jackie in the end, despite the fact that he is accused of using his special assistant Dave Powers to line up willing women, White House intern Mimi Alford claims he was never “looking for a relationship to replace his marriage.” Alford revealed her 18-month relationship with JFK in her 2012 memoir “Once Upon a Secret: My Affair With John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath.”

Jill Cowan, a secretary in the White House Press Office, who has also been rumored to have had an affair with JFK, has never commented on her own relationship with him but has spoken of the admiration he held for his wife.

She claimed he was “very proud of the fact Mrs. Kennedy had kept a book of all the place settings and pictures of the flowers, the whole sort of personal touches in the White House.”

Both of the two other high-profile women JFK is alleged to have had affairs with, actress Marilyn Monroe and Mary Pinchot Meyer, the sister-in-law of legendary Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, died in tragic and unexplained circumstances.

The mental health of Monroe had long been a cause of concern for the President until she mysteriously took an overdose in 1962, aged 36.

Meyer was murdered in Georgetown two years later in a shooting that has not yet been resolved but has fanned the flames of plenty of conspiracy theories.

Earlier this year a handwritten love letter from JFK to Meyer was sold at auction.

“Why don’t you leave suburbia for once – come and see me – either here – or at the Cape next week or in Boston the 19th,” Kennedy wrote in the four-page letter. “I know it is unwise, irrational, and that you may hate it – on the other hand, you may not – and I will love it,” the letter read.

“You say that it is good for me not to get what I want. After all of these years – you should give me a more loving answer than that. Why don’t you just say yes.”

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2016-12-06T05:44:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/irish-echo/why-do-republicans-win-they-play-by-a-different-set-of-rulesWhy do Republicans win? They play by a different set of rules 2016-12-05T19:11:14-05:00
Political correctness is in the eye, ear and mind of the beholder. For example, it wouldn’t likely be hard to find someone who in 2015 got bent out of shape over the answer to the clue “police van” in the New York Times crossword and in 2016 voted for Donald Trump. I’m guessing that most Irish-born people, of which I’m one, would be amused at the idea of a kerfuffle over “paddy wagon.” However, there’s little agreement on what constitutes “political correctness gone mad.”

It hasn’t helped that sections of the media have circulated examples in the category that are entirely or largely fictional. The peculiar thing about the issue is that it’s been progressives and liberals who’ve fought censorship and historically pushed against the boundaries of the “safe spaces” of their day. And they still do -- Bill Maher continues to pursue the themes of his earlier show “Politically Incorrect” and Stephen Colbert mocks the “PC police.”

How come, then, conservatives use the charge with such apparent effectiveness? Well, a labor official, I believe it was, suggested an interesting intellectual exercise: substitute the word “respect” for “politically correct.”

Would you say someone is being “too respectful” when discussing a person or group? You see, in this country, the PC charge is most often used in the context of inclusivity and civility towards individuals or demographics that don’t vote Republican.

At the same time, conservatives build a wall around institutions or principles that they deem to be worthy of respect and all hell breaks loose if there’s any perceived attempt to breach it.

In 1964 LBJ posited in a TV ad that Barry Goldwater would blow up the world. The Democrats haven’t run a good one since; these days, it’s “Daisy Girl” 24/7 from the other side.

The old Clinton maxim “It’s the economy, stupid” might ordinarily have worked this year, but Hillary was running for a “third Obama term.” Maher has said that a President Romney would have happily run for a second term on the current state of the economy.

But the rules are always different with the Republicans, and their mastery of the dark arts gives them the edge.

You can’t help but admire the lack of scruples and the assault on logic. They’re joyfully shameless about it. But they’re also meaner and tougher and thus probably deserve to win as much as they do.

At a time when the GOP seemed in utter disarray at the top, Fox News kept the fire focused on the Democratic candidate and worked overtime to normalize their own. CNN and the other networks, meantime, had a vested interest ratings-wise in a close race and didn’t report important investigative work done by print and online media.

Now, we are increasingly slipping into the age of “post-truth” – which Oxford Dictionaries, in the aftermath of the Brexit and Trump upsets, has named word of the year.

Added to the problem is fake online news, which for instance was responsible for reports that both Pope Francis and Tom Hanks endorsed Donald Trump (their hopes were almost certainly in the other direction).

Back in the real world, Fox News keeps the faithful singing from the same hymn sheet, among them the kin of a prominent New York Times columnist.

Maureen Dowd told her readers about her Thanksgiving. “My little basket of deplorables, as I call my conservative family, gloated with Trump toasts galore, and Kevin presented me with his annual holiday column with an extra flourish.”

“The election was a complete repudiation of Barack Obama: his fantasy world of political correctness,” Kevin said early on in his piece for the paper of record.

Kevin Dowd is an “affluent, educated suburbanite,” in his sister’s words, and so Trump wasn’t his first choice in the primaries. But he was fully on board and on message after the nomination.

He added: “Preaching — and pandering — with a message of inclusion, the Democrats have instead become a party where incivility and bad manners are taken for granted, rudeness is routine, religion is mocked and there is absolutely no respect for a differing opinion.”

Like I said, shameless.

In Kevin’s alternative universe, no doubt, South Carolina’s Rep. Joe Wilson didn’t scream “You lie!” in the middle of an Obama address to Congress. That was Nancy Pelosi kidding around. She does a great Rebel yell, too, as part of her ventriloquist’s routine.

Kevin went on: “The rudeness reached its peak when Vice President-elect Mike Pence was booed by attendees of ‘Hamilton’ and then pompously lectured by the cast. This may play well with the New York theater crowd but is considered boorish and unacceptable by those of us taught to respect the office of the president and vice president, if not the occupants.”

Kevin, God bless him, finally found something to label “boorish” and “unacceptable” in the 2016 election season. It’s been a long 18 months for the rest of us.

In any case, the “Hamilton” cast members did not undermine the dignity of the office of vice-president. They were respectfully giving expression to the shock caused by the fact that someone with the attention span of a goldfish will have access to the nuclear button from January 20. It was also a legitimate protest against the naked use of incendiary speech by the man on the top half of the winning ticket.

Has a demagogue ever before been elected to lead a functioning Western democracy? Aren’t ordinary people, particularly those belonging to groups he’s singled out, right to be afraid?

And then there’s that wonderfully serviceable and slippery distinction between the “office” and the “occupant.”

To speak your mind and stand up for your fellow citizens is an attack on the institution your grandparents revered. But to promote the idea without evidence that the democratically-elected president of the United States (with clear majorities of the popular vote in 2008 and 2012) is secretly a Muslim and illegible because he was born on another continent – yeah, that’s just taking issue with the occupant.

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2016-12-05T14:24:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/niallodowd/brian-p-burns-considered-front-runner-as-donald-trump-s-ambassador-to-irelandBrian P. Burns considered front runner as Donald Trump’s Ambassador to Ireland2016-12-06T04:15:32-05:00
Brian P. Burns philanthropist, businessman, and close personal friend of President-elect Donald Trump is a front runner to be Ambassador to Ireland. Florida resident Burns, grandson of Irish immigrants, and his wife Eileen were guests of the Trump family over Thanksgiving at Mar a Lago.

He is a member of the Irish America Hall of Fame, which he was inducted into along with Vice President Joe Biden in 2013.

IrishCentral understands, from a close associate, he is actively seeking the job as Ambassador to Ireland. Ironically, his father was a trusted confidante of Joseph P. Kennedy, father of President JFK.

The Burns family and the Trumps have been close for some time. Before the Republican Primary in Florida, in March, Burns, speaking from Mar a Lago, said Trump was going to be successful.

The Palm Beach Daily News quoted him saying “I’m certain that Donald will take Florida easily, and if Marco (Rubio) comes in third he should give it up, but the problem with him is that he’s stubborn. He’s got no business taking on Trump. When he got in that name-calling fight with Trump they should have sent him home to his mother to wash his mouth out with soap.”

Added his wife, Eileen Burns, “I am totally in love with this man. He’s hoping to take Florida and Ohio and then he’s going all the way. He’s taking back this country and there’s going to be big changes in the way things work in Washington.”

The 80-year-old Burns is a nationally regarded Business Executive, Attorney and Philanthropist. He is the chairman of BF Enterprises, Inc, a publicly owned real estate holding and development company.

A Massachusetts native, he is the fifth of seven children born to John J. Burns and his wife, Alice. Burns traces his roots to County Kerry and is a graduate of The College of the Holy Cross. He also graduated from Harvard at the age 23.

He was the leading fundraiser behind the effort to restore the world-famous Marsh’s Library, at St. Patrick’s Close in Dublin, the oldest public library in Ireland. He also founded an American Law Library at University College Cork.

Additionally, Burns has established or donated significantly to many cultural and scholastic institutions. In 1986 he founded The Honorable John J. Burns Library of Rare Books and Special Collections at Boston College in memory of his father, who was a prolific lawyer and Joseph P. Kennedy’s attorney and closest advisor.

Works from his renowned personal collection of Irish art have been exhibited at Dublin’s Hugh Lane Gallery, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, the Yale Center of British Art in New Haven, Connecticut , and the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona.

He was a principal benefactor of the first Irish Famine memorial in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was dedicated in July 1997 by former Irish President Mary Robinson. In 2012 he donated a key Famine-era painting from his collection to Quinnipiac University’s Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum, in Connecticut.

He seems a likely frontrunner for the job given his close personal ties to Trump and his stellar Irish record. However, other contenders may well emerge for what is a plum posting usually announced by St. Patrick’s Day.

Here’s a video of Burn’s induction into the Irish America Hall of Fame in 2013:

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2016-12-05T06:01:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/niallodowd/why-so-many-irish-americans-turned-to-trump-in-the-endWhy so many Irish Americans turned to Trump in the end2016-12-03T12:16:17-05:00Back in 2006 when Hillary was first thinking of running for president, a group of potential supporters gathered in Chappaqua at her and Bill’s home. As the night wore on, Bill Clinton in fine form took over the stage giving his insights into the political battle to come. Elections are won by those who sense and reflect the mood music of the country at the time, he said. Most candidates have a deaf ear for it.

Ironically, a few years later, Donald Trump read the mood music far better than Hillary or sixteen Republican opponents. The billionaire understood American working-class frustration and he turned it into a famous victory.

Hillary supporters can argue all they want about Hillary getting more votes but both candidates going in understood what was needed to win, 270 electoral votes, not a landslide popular vote win.

Given the size of her popular vote victory and her inexplicable loss, it is clear the Clinton campaign got its tactics wrong. Of course, all this is easy with 20/20 hindsight but undeniably true.

Campaigning in Arizona, spending on field operations in Georgia and Texas and Utah was just a waste of time. Far more energy should have been focused on the number 270 and blue wall bastions like the industrial Midwest reinforced.

Instead, it seems like they went for a massive win.

The abiding memory of the race for me will be Donald Trump that last weekend, microphone and podium on hand, crisscrossing the key states and ending in Michigan, yes, Michigan at 1.30 a.m. on election day. He left everything on the battlefield.

In that same period the celebrity endorsements and concerts from Beyonce to Bruce Springsteen were rolled out by the Clinton campaign but that, too, proved a tactical error reinforcing the elitist message.

What swung the Irish working class?As I wrote in September, suffocating political correctness, hatred of Hillary Clinton, admiration for what Donald Trump has achieved and a deep sense that America is slipping backward.

Lack of concern for working-class white issues, over-intrusion by the government, a sense there was too many handouts, a belief there was minority mollycoddling and a fear of saying the wrong thing were also significant in my opinion.

Most Irish working-class Catholics, I think, believed Trump at least was giving them a hearing. Clinton, somehow, seemed to float above it all, her analytical and deeply intellectual mindset clashing with the raw, bare-boned approach of Trump.

Her campaign hardly worried about the white working class dismissing them as unimportant in many cases. They turned down an invitation to speak at Notre Dame, they refused to discuss seriously concerns issues such as gay marriage, despite the fact that both President Obama and Hillary until quite recently were also opponents of that.

Looking back, there are many moments she could have won it. The FBI acted disgracefully, involving themselves in an election. During the second debate with Trump roaming the stage distracting her, she could have used her best school marm voice to get him to back off, making it the high point of the debates.

In the end. it just went wrong for her. Our poll of IrishCentral readers in July showed Irish Americans voting 45 percent for Trump with 41 percent for Clinton and the rest undecided.That was probably accurate.

A strong feeling of lost identity in a vastly changed world has become now a powerful populist movement amazingly mirrored on the left by Bernie Sanders supporters.

The election season showed that America, left and right, is mad as hell and won’t take it anymore. Bernie’s attacks counted. By the time Hillary got to the general election, he had succeeded in driving her approval ratings down from 65 percent coming from her term as Secretary of State to the low fifties. The Trump machine did the rest.

Donald Trump seized the moment perfectly and ran an amazing campaign that articulated the fears and the dreams and catapulted him to being the Republican nominee, a scenario that top commentators openly laughed about six months ago.

But if Hillary’s campaign was the Titanic, Trump remains a deeply flawed vessel, something the GOP must know. How he performs as president is anyone’s guess but so far he seems to think picking the richest, oldest, white guys around leads to success.

He’s entitled to his opportunity but he may end up regretting hiring so many plutocrats yet -- not to mention a general called “Mad Dog” for Defense Secretary at a time when cool heads are needed.

I think we will see his greatest problems coming with a foreign policy crisis which he is personally ill-equipped to handle. We can only hope that those around him, the captains and the wealthy kings can guide him through.

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2016-12-03T06:00:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/cahirodoherty/donald-trump-can-t-have-everything-business-v-potusDonald Trump can’t have everything - business v POTUS2016-12-04T07:19:11-05:00
When Donald Trump volunteered to run for president of the United States, he should have read the terms and conditions. He seems shocked to learn that the position comes with a set of responsibilities he’s shown a deep resistance to honoring.

Firstly, as president he cannot earn any income outside of his government salary for the duration of his term. This means any investment income he had upon taking office has to go into a blind trust until he leaves office.

There is a good reason for this rule. It was created to prevent the president from being corrupted by foreign influences. But since the sheer scope of Trump’s conflicts of interest around the world is unprecedented for any incoming American president, it presents serious challenges for him and his incoming administration.

To govern well there can be no question of his intermingling private business with his public responsibilities as president. Unfortunately for the Republic, that’s not how Trump apparently sees it.

Since his global brand is predicated on his name and image, he has been reluctant to give either up in exchange for the public good. Last week The Washington Post reported that 100 foreign diplomats gathered at President-elect Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C. to “to sip Trump-branded champagne and hear a sales pitch about the U.S. president-elect’s newest hotel.”

The Post quoted some of the visiting diplomats agreeing that their stay at the five-star Trump hotel was simply a ploy to ingratiate themselves to the incoming president.

This is the kind of pay for play tactic common to medieval kings, not presidents of the United States. It strengthens his critics’ claims that he is intentionally seeking business and favors from foreign governments to enrich himself at the expense of his office.

Senior ethics watchdogs are already sounding the alarm. Last week Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor who previously served as chief ethics counsel to President George W. Bush, told the press that Trump’s efforts to do private business with foreign diplomats violates a provision in the Constitution intended to prevent foreign states from buying influence with federal officials.

“No person holding any office of profit or trust under” the United States “shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state,” the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause states.

But buying Trump’s favor by staying in his hotel “looks like a gift” being made by these diplomats, Painter said, and exactly the kind of favor that the Constitution seeks to prevent.

Trump is aware of the rumblings, and so he is using his Twitter account as a ploy to confound his enemies. By changing the subject he hopes to evade their scrutiny. It won’t work.

So, Trump actually has until January 20 to do the right thing and sell his holdings, put them in a blind trust, or give them to his children to manage exclusively. Certainly, his involvement in any business discussions or considerations must end by that date.

There are steep consequences if he still shows an unwillingness to go along. The founders did not want foreign payments to be made to the president in any capacity, ever. In fact, they permitted impeachment where a president flagrantly transgresses.

If Trump uses his office to apply pressure to foreign governments concerning his private business dealings, even though his children are effectively in change of operations, he will still be in violation of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, Painter sounds his own dire warning. “I don’t think the Electoral College can vote for someone to become president if he’s going to be in violation of the Constitution on day one and hasn’t assured us he’s not in violation,” he said.

Worryingly, Trump himself has not shown a mature grasp of the predicament that he finds himself in. He recently told TheNew York Times that he could run his business perfectly, and then run the country perfectly. He added that the “ law is totally on my side, meaning, the president can’t have a conflict of interest.”

In fact, he can, and at the moment he clearly does. It remains to be seen if he has the will or the responsibility to do anything about it.

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2016-12-03T00:00:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/irish-leader-denies-being-snubbed-by-trumpIrish leader denies being snubbed by Trump2016-12-02T14:03:06-05:00Taoiseach Enda Kenny has denied he’s been snubbed by President-Elect Donald J. Trump; speaking to members of the media at the Irish Consulate in New York - a few short minutes walk from Trump’s 5th Avenue home - the Taoiseach nonchalantly said, “Come on please, this trip was arranged long before the outcome of the election.

On the possibility that there could be conflict with the new Administration if US companies continue to relocate due to Ireland’s lower rate of corporate tax Kenny shrugged off the question, “Well in respect of the issue of let’s say corporate tax rates, that’s a matter for the American Administration… As far as we’re concerned we control our own corporate tax rate and we’re very happy with the level of investment in Ireland.”

Perhaps in deference to his proximity to US soil, the Taoiseach was more interested in the possibility of British business relocating to Ireland, cheerfully adding, “a number of the companies I've met in the last few days [regarding] queries about relocation... [are] from Great Britain, we will compete for them in that regard very strongly.”

Regarding the plight of the undocumented Irish in the United States, Kenny was more forthright, telling reporters he already spoken to Trump about his concerns, “Clearly this is a matter of considerable interest to us and... the vast majority of [Irish] people here that we know of are contributing to America’s economy, to America’s society… and abide by the laws of the land. So I think the priority for the President-Elect in his comments was the issue of the border and immigrants with criminal records.”

And as to whether he plans to tackle the President-Elect on his pre-election plan to abolish the J-1 visa - used by hundreds of Irish college students every year to spend a summer working in the US - he said, “I’d hate to see that go. I think the J-1 has been an incredible opportunity and a brilliant example of connecting with different countries and cultures for young people.

“I’d like to think we could work together to develop that for the future because it does set about maintaining links between Europe and America, and Ireland in particular has benefited greatly both ways from young people going to America, and coming back with experience, and indeed Americans coming to Ireland. It keeps that very strong cultural, social and business link. So I do hope that the J-1 is enabled to continue.”

And he gave his full backing to his party colleague, Mairead McGuinness MEP, to becoming the next President of the European Parliament, “she is an outstanding candidate. She’s a professional communicator and if anything has gone wrong in Europe in the past period it’s that explaining what Europe is about to the ordinary citizens.”

Ending the press conference on a positive note, he noted regarding billionaire businessman Wilbur Ross - Trump’s nominee for Commerce Secretary - that, “He invested in Ireland when very few wanted to invest in Ireland, he made a very substantial return on his investments… and I wish him well in his time in office.”

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2016-12-02T14:54:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/donald-trump-s-sister-supported-ira-fight-for-irish-unity-in-case-she-handledThe time Donald Trump's sister attacked the federal government2016-12-02T10:10:29-05:00Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, the sister of President-elect Donald J. Trump, once attacked the Federal Government her brother will soon lead for its terrorism laws.

McAllister and his two children faced deportation due to his past involvement in the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), an offshoot of the IRA, something Judge Trump Barry argued should be excused due to the, “800 years of history that led Malachy to fight with his people to remove British rule and the persecution inflicted by that rule on Northern Ireland and on Malachy and his family."

McAllister’s involvement in the INLA led him to injure an RUC policeman in 1981, at the height of the Troubles, and he and his family subsequently fled Northern Ireland in 1988 after their home was attacked by loyalists. All of which, Trump Barry argued, meant the family was of no threat to the United States and should be permitted to stay.

"Congress's definition of 'terrorist activity," she wrote, “sweeps in not only the big guy, but also the little guy who poses no risk to anyone. It sweeps in Malachy McAllister [and] Malachy's children, Seán and Nicola, are swept in, too."

Were the McAllister family to be deported she added, it would mean the words carved on the Statue of Liberty would no longer mean anything, insisting, "I refuse to believe that 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . ' is now an empty entreaty, but if it is, shame on us.”

She concluded that, “I cannot find a way to keep the McAllisters in this country, and I have surely tried,” before adding, “We cannot be the country we should be if, because of the tragic events of Sept. 11, we knee-jerk remove decent men and women merely because they may have erred at one point in their lives.”

McAllister has always said he and his children, “fear that their lives will be in danger if they are returned to Northern Island.” McAllister has received numerous temporary stays of deportation since that time, the most recent of which was granted in April this year.

The case was taken up by 44 members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, who successfully argued that deporting McAllister would do no good and would run counter to the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement.

Congressman Joe Crowley said at the time, “The reprieve is not permanent at this point, but I am confident it is one that allows Malachy to work on a permanent solution to his problem.”

As for Judge Trump Barry, the now 79-year-old sister of the President-elect has since retired after close to 30 years of service to the judiciary.

Originally a homemaker for many years, Trump’s older sister was nominated as a Federal District Judge in 1983 by the Reagan Administration and promoted in 1999 by the Clinton Administration to the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Like her more famous younger brother, Trump Barry now lives part-time in Palm Beach, FL. Although the siblings are reported to be very close, the two are described as unlike in temperament with family friend and Trump delegate Robin Bernstein telling the Palm Beach Post, “She’s quiet. She doesn’t go to the balls. She’s everything you’d want a judge to be. She’s eloquent and articulate.”

During the GOP primaries earlier this year, she made the headlines after her brother’s rival Sen. Ted Cruz attacked her as a “radical, pro-abortion extremist,” but Trump Barry rarely courts publicity.

In 2011 she gave the commencement address at Fairfield University in Connecticut where she chose to speak about the ups and downs of her life, not just her successes. In a statement it is hard to imagine her brother making she told the graduating students, “My first job out of law school was as one of two women assistant U.S. attorneys in an office of 63 U.S. attorneys, and the first woman to do criminal work appearing only before male judges. Scared? Every day of my life.”

She also urged them not to see success merely as only professional, insisting, “Success can be something as simple as the warm feeling one gets if you see a stranger that you sense to be lonely and smiling at that stranger and having that stranger return your smile; it can be bringing a child into the world and raising a child to be a good man or a good woman.”

Unlike her brother, she also maintains a strong connection with their mother’s home, the Isle of Lewis in the Scottish Outer Hebrides. Last year she donated £150,000 (the equivalent of over $180,000) to Bethesda Care Home on the island and has been to visit her Scottish cousins more than 20 times. In contrast, her younger brother has visited the island only once since childhood.

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2016-12-02T10:35:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/an-interview-with-donald-trump-s-mother-on-irish-tv-in-1994An interview with Donald Trump’s mother on Irish TV in 19942016-12-02T09:21:41-05:00
Throughout the presidential campaign, Donald Trump’s mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was one of the more intriguing parts of his full portrait. He expressed deep admiration for Mary, who passed away in 2000 at 88 years of age, having stated in his book “The Art of the Comeback”: “Part of the problem I’ve had with women has been in having to compare them to my incredible mother, Mary Trump.”

The brief segment, from Bibi Baskin’s show “It’s Bibi,” featured the famed Irish tenor Frank Patterson in conversation with Mary Trump. It took place at the (since bankrupt and closed) Trump Taj Mahal Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, where Patterson was playing two concerts.

She talks about the first time they met, at Booth Memorial Hospital, when Mary was there recovering from injuries after being mugged.

She delves into her Scottish origins, born in “a little town called Stornoway, on the Island of Lewis, way up in the Hebrides, way up in the Hebrides. Beautiful little island.

“I grew up there, came to New York, met my husband, went back to Scotland, came back to New York to get married.”

Donald was not in Atlantic City with them that weekend because he’d received a call from Steven Spielberg asking him to make a cameo in a movie, and “of course he didn’t want to say no.” (According to IMDB the only cameos Trump made that year were in “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and “The Little Rascals,” neither of which Spielberg worked on, but who knows?)

She talks about the pain of losing her oldest son, Fred, who died of alcoholism in 1981 at just 43. “Our oldest daughter [Maryanne] is a federal judge… and of course there’s Donald and Robert and Elizabeth,” she says.

Patterson says that it’s been a privilege for him to know the Trump family. “They’re wonderful people. It’s amazing, when you come to America, you know, this is the kind of thing that happens – you just meet so many wonderful people.”

One also can’t help but notice that Trump seems to take after his mother in the hair department.

“Both mother and son shared a penchant for dynamic hair sculpting, as for years Mary Trump appeared in photos with a dramatic orange swirl. Slight in frame, she took to New York City’s streets draped in furs and jewelry, a far cry from the teen-age girl who set sail during the Great Depression. ‘Looking back, I realize now that I got some of my sense of showmanship from my mother,’ Trump wrote in his 1987 book, ‘The Art of the Deal.’ He recounted how his mother was ‘enthralled by the pomp and circumstance’ of watching Queen Elizabeth’s coronation on television. ‘She always had a flair for the dramatic and grand. She was a very traditional housewife, but she also had a sense of the world beyond her.’

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2016-12-02T10:21:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/niallodowd/how-mike-pence-and-his-irish-grandfather-could-be-a-game-changer-for-immigration-reformMike Pence and his Irish grandfather a game changer for immigration reform?2016-12-02T21:50:58-05:00
Mike Pence, the next Vice President, was not always a hardliner on immigration. In 2006 Pence, who calls himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order,” pushed a relatively liberal immigration plan at a time when his party was coalescing behind hardliners. Pence’s plan called for undocumented to return home, but to be allowed to then get legal visas to come back if they passed a security check. It was called touch back and Pence was suddenly deeply unpopular with his conservative base, some of whom likened him to Benedict Arnold.

At the time Pence was undaunted by the criticism. “It’s a test of the character of the conservative movement in the 21st century,” he said. “We are either going to prove that we believe in the ideas enshrined on the Statue of Liberty or the American people will go looking elsewhere.”

Pence’s bill, an attempt at a compromise between a Senate / Bush White House bill and a House of Representatives bill, called for 12 million undocumented to self-deport then be allowed back in as legal guest-workers after security checks.

On a campaign-style trip to push his idea in 2006, The New York Times noted that Pence quoted the Bible and Ronald Reagan. He stood sweating in a tomato field beside Mexican workers and when asked why an Indiana congressman was focused on the border, he responded with a ready phrase: “April 11, 1923.”

That is when his Irish grandfather, Richard Michael Cawley, a Chicago bus driver, arrived at Ellis Island. “We were especially close,” Pence said and added that he saw his grandfather’s thrift and hard work in today’s immigrant generation.

Pence's bill went nowhere but strangely a version of it has been mentioned by Donald Trump on the campaign trail, when he talked about illegals all leaving but then many being allowed back.

If, by some miracle an immigration bill was passed granting work visas, it would be a tribute to the impact one Irishman had on Mike Pence

Pence was deeply impacted by Richard Cawley, born 1903 in Tubbercurry, Co Sligo who came through Ellis Island in 1924 after a stint in the Irish Army during the Civil War. He became a bus driver in Chicago.

In a speech in 2014 in Chicago Pence traced those Irish roots.

“I really owe a debt of gratitude to Chicago that springs from my own personal history. When my grandfather got off a boat on Ellis Island in about 1923, he caught a train to Chicago and he drove a bus in this city for about 40 years,” Pence told the crowd.

“My mom and dad both grew up on the Southside of Chicago, down around 55th and Honore. In fact, we have family that goes to school and lives and works in this community here today.”

The religious conservative also noted how especially meaningful it was to be addressing the City Club during December, the time of year he often traveled to Chicago as a child

“It’s very personal when I’m in this city. I feel very at home. My story is I was raised by two big city kids in a really small town in southern Indiana,” said Pence, who grew up in Columbus, IN and represented the area in Congress before becoming governor in 2013.

“Particularly this time of year the Pence family would find themselves in the back of a station wagon making the long trip up what was then Highway 31 to the Southside of Chicago to hearth and home and family and friends. It’s a blessing to be here this time of year with all of you and reflect on those deep memories.”

Historian graduate Robert C. Theiss from Arlington, VA researched more about the life of Pence's grandfather. "Passenger arrival records show Richard Cawley, aged 20, a miner, arriving in New York on April 11, 1923, on a ship called the Andania, which had set sail from Liverpool. The passenger arrival record shows Richard Cawley's place of birth as Doocastle (on the Mayo/Sligo border near Tubbercurry).

The passenger arrival record shows his last place of residence as having been Ashton-in-Makerfield, Lancs., England.

"The arrival record shows as his final destination Chicago, where he would be joining a brother, James Cawley (1899-1982), already living in Chicago. Richard Cawley's death certificate shows he died on December 24, 1980, aged 77, in Columbus, IN. He had relocated from Chicago to Columbus to live with his daughter Nancy Pence and family following the death of his wife Mary Elizabeth just several weeks previously.

“The death certificate further shows that he was born in Ireland on February 7, 1903, his parents were Richard Cawley and Ellen Marren." It it is possible that by the time Richard Cawley emigrated to America in 1923, the family were residing in Tubbercurry. Mike Pence's maternal grandmother, Richard Cawley's wife, was Mary Elizabeth Maloney.

She was born on March 22, 1907, in Chicago. She died in Chicago on November 1, 1980, aged 73, just weeks before her husband Richard died. She was the daughter of Irish immigrants, but from a different part of Ireland. Her father, James Michael Maloney, was born on February 1, 1872, in Killaloe, Co. Clare, and her mother, Mary Anne Downes, was born on July 16, 1880, in Doonbeg, Co. Clare, which is where Donald Trump owns a golf resort.”

A one time advocate for immigration reform, perhaps Richard Cawley’s grandson, the next VP, can rise to the occasion again. It may be all that immigration advocates have to hang on to.

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2016-12-02T05:28:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/jackie-kennedy-blamed-lyndon-b-johnson-for-jfk-murder-127220093-237788131Jackie believed Lyndon B. Johnson had John F. Kennedy killed2016-12-02T05:30:56-05:00
Jackie Kennedy believed Lyndon B. Johnson was behind the 1963 assassination of her husband President John F. Kennedy. In the sensational tapes recorded by the First Lady months after the President’s death, broadcast by ABC, Kennedy revealed her belief that Johnson and a cabal of Texas tycoons orchestrated the murder of her husband by gunman Lee Harvey Oswald. Kennedy, who later became Jackie Onassis, claimed that the Dallas murder was part of a larger conspiracy to allow Johnson to become American President in his own right.

Johnson, who served as a member of Congress, completed Kennedy’s term after the assassination and went on to be elected president. Leading historian Arthur Schlesinger Jnr recorded the tapes with Jackie Kennedy within months of her husband’s death. They have been stored in a sealed vault at the Kennedy Library in Boston after orders from Mrs. Kennedy that they would remain secret for 50 years after her death.

Years after her mother died from cancer, daughter Caroline has opted to release the tapes early. She has entered an agreement with the ABC network in the States who will air the tapes after agreeing to cancel their Kennedys drama series which upset Caroline and the Kennedy family.

The $10 million series starred Tom Cruise’s wife Kate Holmes as Jackie Kennedy and critically charted the family’s political and personal trials and tribulations since the 1930s. It has now been dropped in a deal with Caroline concerning these tapes.

ABC executives have confirmed that the revelations in the tapes are ‘explosive’ with Jackie Kennedy allegedly blaming President Lyndon Johnson for the death of JFK, according to the Daily Mail reports. It is believed the tapes also include the suggestion that President Kennedy was having an affair with a 19-year-old White House intern with his wife even claiming that she found underwear in their bedroom.

Jackie Kennedy also admits to several affairs of her own in the tapes - one with Hollywood star William Holden and another with Fiat founder Gianni Agnelli - in retaliation for the President’s indiscretions.

There are also claims that the couple had discussed having more children in the weeks before his death. Noted Kennedy family historian and author Edward Klein said: “Jackie regarded the pretty young things in the White House as superficial flings for Jack. She did retaliate by having her own affairs.

“There was a period during which she was delighted to be able to annoy her husband with her own illicit romances.”

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2016-12-02T00:00:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/europe-brings-us-to-court-for-delaying-cheap-cork-to-boston-flightsEurope brings US to court for delaying cheap Cork to Boston flights2016-12-02T03:44:55-05:00The European Commission today began arbitration proceedings against the US over delays in awarding a foreign carrier permit to Irish-based airline Norwegian Air International (NAI), a subsidiary of Norwegian company Norwegian Air. Three years have passed since the airline first applied for a permit to fly from Cork to Boston/New York and although a tentative decision was made in favor of the license by the US Department of Transport in April 2016, the permit has still not been granted. The EU believes the delay to be in breach of the Open Skies Agreement, which allows EU-registered airlines to fly to the US from anywhere in Europe, and after repeated warnings, has opened the arbitration process.

“The Commission works to ensure that EU-level aviation agreements are fully respected and that EU companies are not subject to unfair treatment,” said European Commission spokesperson Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, confirming that the arbitration would take place under the EU-U.S. Air Transport Agreement (more commonly known as Open Skies).

Italian professor Giorgio Sacerdoti is set to act as arbitrator on behalf of the European Union, appointed last month, and the US now have 20 days to appoint their own candidate before a third is picked on mutual agreement. The third candidate must be picked within 45 days and will preside over the tribunal.

“The Commission informed the U.S. authorities of this position already in November 2014 and regrets that no suitable solution could be found despite intensive discussions at all levels,” Itkonen said.

“The Commission acted in good faith during this process and still invites the U.S. authorities to comply with the EU-U.S. Air Transport Agreement in order to reach an amicable solution.”

In July 2015, European Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc sent a letter to U.S. Transport Secretary Anthony Foxx explaining that arbitration was on the table “despite the patience and the goodwill that the EU has shown.”

MEP (Member of the European Parliament) from Ireland South Deirdre Clune has also written to Foxx asking for the permit to be granted before the term comes to an end in January.

Basing NAI, a subsidiary of the company Norwegian Air, in the Republic of Ireland, the airline had hoped to take advantage of the Open Skies Agreement.

Despite making a tentative decision in April 2016 to grant a foreign carrier permit to the Irish-based airline, the US Department of Transport has failed to confirm the license amid the push back on the new routes.

The main US concerns with NAI’s proposed route is that staff the airline have plans to outsource employment to Asian countries, an accusation they have firmly denied, in turn accusing their opponents of creating a “wildly inaccurate fearmongering situation.

If the US is found to have breached the EU/US open skies agreement, the EU could suspend US Airlines benefits under the 2007 pact.

Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny has previously called on US President Barack Obama to put an end to the delays in establishing the Norwegian Airlines Cork to Boston route, appealing to “common sense” to end the months-long stalemate on a foreign carrier permit.

NAI originally planned to begin a Cork to Boston route by summer 2016, which would eventually extend to Barcelona, with the addition of a Cork-New York route in 2017. The direct service between Boston and Cork is expected to be offered by the budget carrier four to five days a week, costing between $300 and $350 for a round trip.

The airline has since been pipped to the post somewhat, as Icelandic airline Wow Air announced last month they would rolling out transatlantic services between eight key North American cities and Cork Airport for less than $163.00 (€149.00) one way as of May 2017.

This is the first time either the EU or the US has invoked arbitration under the Open Skies accord. Norwegian Air has welcomed the action stating it was "confident that any arbitration case will recognize Norwegian's clear right to a foreign carrier permit."

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2016-12-01T14:00:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/irishvoice/put-a-lid-on-donald-trump-put-down-your-phone-president-electPut a lid on Donald Trump - put down your phone President-elect2016-12-01T06:59:16-05:00
Can Reince or Kellyanne or Bannon or Jared or someone – ANYONE? – possibly wrestle the smartphone out of President-elect Donald Trump’s hands so he can stop humiliating himself and, by association, his fellow Americans, the majority of whom didn’t even vote for him in the first place? The Donald was the master of the pivot during the race for the White House, artfully evading questions and controversies and turning liabilities that would have sunk any other campaign into assets – gleefully blaming the media every step of the way for being “unfair” and “biased” against him.

Yet the pivot skill seems to have totally evaded him since he won the election, and he’s still tweeting like a madman.

Trump isn’t a candidate anymore. He’s the incoming president of the United States and a jittery world is consuming his every utterance, but he’s still behaving as if he’s a Z-list contestant on a tacky reality show. You won, Donald. Okay? We’re with you on that because we believe in the integrity of the American election system.

The recount effort by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, with support from the Hillary Clinton campaign, is totally ridiculous, and seems more designed to keep Stein’s name out there instead of changing the outcome of the election. (How many votes did Stein earn on November 8? About one percent, 1.4 million or so, well behind third place Libertarian Gary “What is Aleppo?” Johnson.)

The end result of the long and extremely grueling 2016 campaign isn’t going to change. Trump won. And that’s that.

Is this the United States you’re preparing to lead, or do you think we’re some sort of banana republic? If so, what are you going to do about it?

It’s head-shaking and deeply embarrassing that an incoming president, who won fair and square, is happy to throw dirt over our electoral process instead of rising above the fray and getting on with the business of forming a government, a process that’s already a predictable joke given the in-fighting that’s spilled out into the open courtesy of his most recent campaign guru Kellyanne Conway, who’s been gleefully trashing the boss over his possible selection of the dastardly Mitt Romney as secretary of state.

And there was Trump again on Monday, formulating American foreign policy in one fell tweet with regards to Cuba. He tweeted:

If Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate deal.

Whatever happened to the art of the deal, Mr. President-elect? You wrote books about that, and now you’re laying your strategy bare about a nation that’s a major concern to millions of Americans in one simplistic tweet?

It’s painful to contemplate, this reality TV circus come to life thanks to a cast of misfits who, so far, have shown an inability to rise above and demonstrate true leadership.

But, then again, it was all about winning and winning huge for Trump. After that? Clearly, at least from what we’ve seen so far, he doesn’t have a clue.

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2016-12-01T05:14:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/others/nyc-st-paddy-s-day-could-be-ruined-by-first-lady-trump-s-securityTrump security leads to fears of massive St. Pat's parade disruption on 5th Ave2016-11-30T04:08:37-05:00
Will Irish eyes be smiling on St. Patrick’s Day 2017? It’s unlikely around 56th Street and Fifth Avenue at Trump Tower, the building they're already calling the White House North which is now a massive security zone. Incoming First Lady Melania Trump’s announcement that she will remain in New York City instead of moving with her husband to the White House may cause major problems for parade marchers, especially if her husband is in town on St. Patrick’s Day.

MarchAgeddon Friday, March 17, 2017 some are calling it.

Yes, you’ve got it. The Trumps live right in the heart of the St. Pat’s Parade. And now that their lives and fortunes have changed dramatically they could seriously impact the route and length of the 2017 Saint Patrick’s Day march, which takes place this year on the busiest day of the week, a Friday.

Trump Tower, the 58-story skyscraper where Melania will continue to reside with her son Barron, is located on 56th Street, right in the heart of the traditional St. Pat’s parade route.

Fears that the St. Pat’s Parade – which can take half a day to complete – will be drastically slowed because of anti-terrorist crash barriers and massive security are now coming center stage. It’ll be the Aran sweater brigade versus the 'House of Cards.'

To compound matters, this week it was announced that the Secret Service is considering renting an entire floor of Trump Tower, turning it into a top security fortress at an estimated cost to taxpayers of $1 million a day.

That means it won’t just be street traffic. All overhead flights will have to be re-routed and all the nearby Subways (hello Rockefeller Center) will have to be fortified and attack-proofed.

Insiders say good luck getting to the St. Pat’s parade next year if you don’t set out hours before it steps off.

Considering that she’s about to become First Lady, it’s remarkable how little we see or know about Melania. After her Republican National Convention speech, where her admiration for Michelle Obama went entirely too far, we didn’t see much of her for months.

This lower profile period began immediately after the convention, unsurprisingly. But soon claims that she had worked here as an illegal alien in the 1990’s sent her further underground, claims that were hotly disputed by the Trump campaign, who said they would shortly release documents that disproved these terrible allegations.

The documents were never produced and Melania has rarely emerged since.

As long as Melania remains here security experts warn that parts of Fifth Avenue will remain effectively closed from now.

And it gets worse. Donald is said to much prefer his own 58th-floor tower apartment, which is decorated in 24-karat gold and marble in the Louis XIV style, to the austere atmosphere of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave – guaranteeing further disruption.

So the writing is on the wall for the local shops and parades. There will be security and traffic problems, massive ones, come St. Patrick’s Day 2017.

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2016-11-29T05:45:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/irishvoice/reading-a-man-s-character-through-his-enemies-take-donald-trumpReading a man’s character through his enemies - take Donald Trump2016-11-29T04:17:46-05:00
They say if you want to get the measure of a man, have a look at who his friends are. That may be true, but you’ll gain a much faster insight about him if you consider his enemies. What we now know for certain about Donald Trump is that, like the paranoid and mistrustful Richard Nixon, he keeps a very long list of them. That list now includes celebrities, former associates, politicians and journalists. It’s also growing by the day. Before he even becomes president, Trump’s been making increasingly dramatic threats and lashing out in public and private, in meetings and on Twitter, giving us a worrying preview of what his vindictive administration will be like when it commences.

But it’s not just that he’s already behaving like a tyrant. It’s who he’s behaving like a tyrant toward that tells us something fundamental about him.

Last Monday morning he summoned the nation’s leading news anchors to his gold plated tower. Thinking they would hear new details about what kind of access to him they would have, they attended. Into the tower came Lester Holt, Charlie Rose, George Stephanopoulos, Wolf Blitzer and others for an off-the-record chat and presumably to discuss the lessons of the hard fought presidential campaign. But what they actually got was a defiant slap in the face and this message: You got it all wrong.

The meeting took place in a big boardroom and there were about 30 or 40 people present, including the top news anchors from all the networks, the New York Post reported.

Trump started in on CNN chief Jeff Zucker first telling him, “I hate your network. Everyone at CNN is a liar and you should be ashamed.” He had barbs for everyone present and he held nothing back.

“We’re in a room of liars, the deceitful, dishonest media who got it all wrong,” he continued.

What Trump fails to realize is that he’s no longer a private citizen and he’s certainly not a monarch: he’s the incoming President of the United States. If he can’t handle the constant media criticism then he’s applied for the wrong job.

Meanwhile, it may have escaped your attention but Trump’s most impassioned supporters are what some outlets call the “alt-right.” Your Yankee grandfather’s generation would have simply called them fascists. Trump’s profoundly anti-immigrant campaign inspired the alt-right, our own homegrown fascists, to pick him as their savior. The frequent slurs against people from Mexico and the proposal to ban Muslims from the U.S. ensured the enthusiastic support he has received from white supremacists – a fact that he has done practically nothing to change.

Since his win an alarming number of bias attacks against minorities have occurred across the country, including attacks on immigrants, LGBT people, and damage to private property, vandalized with neo-Nazi graffiti extolling Hitler and Trump.

Did Trump lament these developments? He did not. Instead he attacked the cast of a Broadway musical for respectfully asking his vice president Mike Pence to work on behalf of all Americans and uphold their inalienable rights.

Trump takes no offense at the verbal and physical attacks made in his name, but he was enraged by a polite request made by a multiracial group of actors on a Broadway stage, and he demanded an apology from them.

The contrast is stark. Last weekend a group of white supremacists gathered in his name at the Ronald Reagan federal building, just a few blocks from the White House, to celebrate his election. Trump, who always attacks without holding back, had not one word to condemn them.

By choosing Steve Bannon, a man that some Democrats have already openly called a Nazi, to help direct his administration, Trump gave what some have called a wink to the alt-right, because Bannon has managed one of its most preferred media platforms and is overseeing its expansion.

So there is no question that we are in a dangerous and unprecedented new moment now. Trump apparently doesn’t understand the baleful forces he unleashed during the primaries or more worryingly he doesn't actually care. In Trumpland you either aid his ambitions or you find yourself berated and blacklisted.

One particularly warm relationship he appears to have is with the Russian president. In fact, reports show that before he spoke to the Pentagon he spoke to Vladimir Putin. On Monday Putin reciprocated by moving his nuclear missiles closer to Europe in an alarming show of force.

While Trump spends all of his time attacking his enemies on Twitter, he should be much more worried about his friends out there in the real world.

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2016-11-28T05:21:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/others/american-dream-donald-trump-s-big-gaffney-gaffeAmerican Dream? Donald Trump’s big Gaffney gaffe2016-11-28T04:17:08-05:00
In some ways, Frank J. Gaffney has achieved the American Dream. After decades of foreign policy work, he is on the brink of being a key player in the White House. I just wonder what his grandfather, who was targeted by anti-Catholic bigots, would say about some of Frank Gaffney’s more, um, paranoid opinions.

Born in Pittsburgh, Gaffney served in the Reagan administration as deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear forces and arms control. He had a falling out with Reagan officials, believing they should not pursue any kind of agreement on nuclear arms with the Soviet Union.

Gaffney then, in the late 1980s, established the Center for Security Policy think tank. To put it nicely, he became influential in right wing circles.

But with the end of the Cold War, Gaffney’s hard-core anti-Communism fell out of favor. He found a new calling in the War on Terror.

To put it nicely, he is influential among those who think Muslims pose a profound existential threat to America.

These days, Gaffney was back in the news. Though he was an adviser to Ted Cruz during the GOP primaries, Gaffney now apparently has Donald Trump’s ear.

As The New York Times noted last week, “For advice on building Mr. Trump’s national security team, his inner circle has been relying on three hawkish current and former American officials.” These are Representative Devin Nunes of California, former congressman Peter Hoekstra and Gaffney.

As the Times put it, “Mr. Gaffney has long advanced baseless conspiracy theories, including that President Obama might be a closet Muslim. The Southern Poverty Law Center described him as ‘one of America’s most notorious Islamophobes.’”

In other words, some folks feel Gaffney dabbles in religious bigotry and persecution.

This all comes amidst talk that Trump and his supporters may back some kind of national registry for Muslims, citing the deplorable Japanese internment camps of World War II as precedent.

I know, I know. What do you expect from the bleeding heart clowns at the Times and the SPLC. In Trump’s America those are practically compliments.

But there is an exquisite irony in all this. Exactly 90 years ago, Frank Gaffney’s grandfather, Joseph, was a power broker in Philadelphia, in the administration of Mayor W. Freeland Kendrick.

In 1926, a cultural war broke out in the City of Brotherly Love. It seems those two renowned Irish American pugilists Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney were slated to stage a title fight in Philly in September 1926.

At the time -- much to the chagrin of many Protestants who’d lived in Philly for generations -- city officials were pondering loosening some of the city’s “blue laws,” which, among other things, forced many businesses and other facilities to close on Sundays.

All of this unfolded as Philadelphia -- and the nation -- were feeling very patriotic because it was the 150th anniversary of America’s founding, a central event in Philadelphia history.

Believe it or not, this laid the groundwork for a bitter religious battle, as author Bruce J. Evensen noted in his book When Dempsey Fought Tunney.

Many Protestants saw boxing’s bloodlust and the loosening of the blue laws as a symbol of creeping immigrant influence.

“The fear was nourished by Ku Klux Klan members who passed out literature at the close of protest rallies demanding ‘America for Americans,’” Evensen writes.

When Kendrick banned the Klan from a function to which the Catholic Knights of Columbus were invited, some charged that “Jews and Catholics were gaining control of American institutions,” according to Evensen.

One minister even earned two minutes of wild applause when he charged that “there is not a single outstanding Protestant” in Kendrick’s administration, and that Kendrick himself was a puppet of a Catholic in his inner circle -- none other than Joseph Gaffney, Frank Gaffney’s grandfather.

So, the Gaffney clan goes from religiously persecuted to religiously persecuting. It’s the American Dream, right?

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2016-11-26T00:00:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/why-one-trump-supporter-travelled-all-the-way-from-ireland-to-cast-her-voteDonald Trump supporter who traveled from Ireland to cast her vote2016-11-25T11:53:37-05:00
In a passionate piece published on November 13, in the opinion section of Ireland’s Sunday Independent newspaper, Bridget McIntyre discussed a 40 year journey that saw her travel over 5,000 miles from her home in Ardfinnan, Co. Tipperary to cast a ballot for Donald Trump in Florida. The election result, which saw Trump winning by a wide electoral college margin over Hillary Clinton, was a shock to many, but to people like McIntyre this result was seen as the culmination of years of being forgotten and unheard by those in power.

McIntyre, who spent 40 years working in a Florida hospital, mostly as a trauma nurse, outlined her view of why Trump was the only candidate who she believes showed compassion to the working class and never lost touch with the people.

“The journey to that vote was not all about the miles. It took 40 years of living and working, mostly as a trauma nurse, in America. I worked beside whites, blacks and Latinos, as friends and colleagues, witnessing the decline of America for the ordinary working man and woman. Indeed, I witnessed that decline at the bedsides of my patients.

"Back in the 1970s, most of them could sustain a family of five or six with their salary. But in the 2000s they were working two or three low-paid jobs and were still unable to afford their mortgage payments. Furthermore, I was seeing more sick, young people in the hospitals due to stress, burnout and the resulting family breakdown.”

McIntyre believes that these views are the reason why historically Democratic stronghold states like Pennsylvania and Ohio voted Republican. These and other states in that region of America known as the Rust Belt, was once home to many major industrial manufacturers and is home to millions of the blue collar working-class who think their government has lost touch with the people.

“It all began in the 1980s under massive deregulation and corporate greed. I will add to that the deregulation and disrespect for the traditional family and the rise of neo-liberalism. It was a perfect storm. It was lazy politics practiced by lazy politicians pandering to special interests at the expense of people who contribute enormously to society. It facilitated this awful divide in America today.”

Speaking on Irish radio station Newstalk, McIntyre spoke of the divide between the “liberal elites” she believes run the country and the people. “I would say that the Democratic Party did lose touch with them. Donald Trump employs tens of thousands of people and I would say by my observations that most of them are minorities. The Democratic Party now really represents the East coast and West coast; it has lost touch with the center. I suppose it felt it suited it to move forward and they took these people for granted.”

In the highly contested state of Florida, where McIntyre cast her vote, Trump eked out a razor thin victory, gaining the votes of 49.1% of the electorate compared to Clinton’s 47.8%. This ensured 29 electoral votes that Trump needed and played a key role in his becoming the President-elect. Florida is a major swing state and has played a key role in past presidential elections as it consistently provides close contests. Florida voted for the Democratic Party the previous two elections in similarly close contests.

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2016-11-25T06:15:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/irishvoice/dowling-thankful-for-nyc-st-patrick-s-day-grand-marshal-honorDowling thankful for NYC St. Patrick's’ Day Grand Marshal honor2016-11-25T05:33:12-05:00
He was raised in a home in Co. Limerick without running water or electricity by parents who were devoted to learning, and those memories will loom large for Northwell Health President and CEO Michael Dowling when he leads the 255th New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade up Fifth Avenue next March 17. Dowling was formally unveiled as grand marshal during a reception at the Irish Consulate last Thursday evening attended by more than 200 members of the Irish community who plan on marching behind Dowling, a native of Knockaderry who received an enthusiastic welcome and promised to carry on the proud tradition of grand marshals past.

“This is a celebration of Irish history and Irish culture and the emigration of the Irish over here from the very beginning and the extraordinary things we’ve accomplished,” said Dowling, who leads 63,000 employees at Northwell, the largest private employer in New York State.

“It’s a celebration of all the people that came before us, in many ways different and more difficult times. All of us here stand on the shoulders of those who came before us because they created a circumstance that we can now be here and take pride in what it is that we have become.”

Dowling called the parade a “celebration of unity, a celebration of community, the Irish community, all different parts of it, coming together and working together representing who we really are: a major, major force in the history of the United States, and an ongoing major force in the future of the United States.

“We do best when we work together as a community, when we understand the interdependence of all … when we understand that St. Patrick’s Day is for everybody, not just for some people but for everybody.”

Dowling seemed to be alluding to the inclusion of gay groups in the parade’s line of march, a contentious issue that moved in 2015 with the inclusion of OUT@NBCUniversal, the LGBT support group of the parade’s broadcast network NBC, and was finally settled this year when the first Irish gay group, the Lavender and Green Alliance, took its place on Fifth Avenue.

Lavender and Green leaders Brendan Fay and Kathleen Walsh D’Arcy were at the consulate for the announcement last week and hailed the appointment of Dowling as grand marshal. Fay and Walsh D’Arcy will travel to Dublin at the beginning of next month to receive the Presidential Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad in recognition of their work on behalf of the Irish gay community in the U.S.

Leaders from many Irish groups were at the reception, as were some representatives from the parade’s affiliated organizations who are looking to have a greater say in how the march is managed. The chairman of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Celebration Committee, John Tully, and some of his allies were also in attendance.

Missing from the festivities were Dr. John Lahey, the chairman of the parade board who was recuperating from a recent surgery, and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who sent his greetings to Dowling via a letter that was read by Irish Consul General Barbara Jones.

“I know, Michael, that you will have a delightful and memorable experience meeting tens of thousands of marchers who come together to celebrate Irish heritage and honor the patron saint of Ireland and the Archdiocese of New York,” Dolan wrote.

A piper from the Fighting 69th Regiment led Dowling into the room, where his wife Kathleen and daughter Elizabeth were waiting. Dowling said he’s the only member of his family living in the U.S., but that a large contingent from Limerick has already made travel plans for March 17.

He also plans on taking the next few months to connect further with the Irish American community.

“I want to get to know more and more people. I’m very interested in being engaged in all of the events that people want me to be engaged in during the period,” Dowling said.

“To me, it’s not just one day. It’s a celebration of what we do that day and also around it. I couldn’t be more proud.”

What will Dowling be thinking as he heads up Fifth Avenue on March 17? “Well, I’ll be hoping that I don’t trip,” he told the Irish Voice with a laugh.

Dowling, a voracious reader, also spoke of studying virtually non-stop during his childhood, a habit that still remains.

“I work seven days a week and my favorite time is always learning time to this day,” he says. “Because what we don’t know is really extraordinary. I’m always trying to close the gap.”

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2016-11-25T05:52:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/business/case-for-cheap-norwegian-air-flights-from-cork-to-us-to-settled-by-arbitratorCase for cheap Norwegian Air flights from Cork to US to be settled by arbitrator2016-11-25T05:59:04-05:00Italian professor Giorgio Sacerdoti is set to act as arbitrator on behalf of the European Union in an upcoming case with the United States regarding Norwegian Air flights between Cork/Shannon and Boston. An expert in international law, Professor Sacerdoti previously worked on behalf of the World Bank and World Trade Organisation on the settlement of international disputes. The delay in granting a foreign carrier permit to Norwegian Air International (NAI) is unprecedented. The airline first submitted an application three years ago. The European Union's frustration at the delay led them to triggering the arbitration process for settling such disputes. Sacerdoti's appointment is an indication that the EU wants this matter resolved quickly.

Sacerdoti’s appointed was welcomed by MEP (Member of the European Parliament) from Ireland South Deirdre Clune, who has also written to the US Transport Secretary Anthony Foxx in recent days, calling on him to approve the permit before the end of his term on January 20.

Clune described Sacerdoti as a “suitably qualified candidate” noting that he “has served eight years in the appellate body of the World Trade Organisation.”

By basing NAI, a subsidiary of Norwegian Air, in the Republic of Ireland the airline had hoped to take advantage of the Open Skies Agreement, which allows EU-registered airlines to fly to the US from anywhere in Europe. However, they have been met with opposition from US aviation unions, airlines, and some politicians.

Despite making a tentative decision in April 2016 to grant a foreign carrier permit to the Irish-based airline, the US Department of Transport has failed to confirm the license amid the push back on the new routes.

America's main concerns with NAI’s proposed route is the rumor that the airline plans to outsource employment to Asian countries, an accusation they have firmly denied. The airline has, in turn, accused their opponents of creating a “wildly inaccurate fear-mongering situation.”

In July, the EU announced they were to take the unprecedented step of arbitration over the failure of the US authorities to grant Norwegian air a license, believing the delay to be in direct contravention of the EU/US Open Skies agreement. Under the process, three arbitrators will be named to attempt to put an end to the dispute: one chosen by the EU, one by the US and a third by mutual consent.

If the US is found to have breached the EU/US open skies agreement, the EU could suspend US airlines' benefits under the 2007 pact.

“I am concerned about what consequences this matter could have, not only for relations in aviation but for overall transatlantic relations. It is of the utmost importance that agreements like Open Skies are upheld and this impasse sets a bad example at a time when bilateral ties may be strained and questioned by many sectors of our societies.

“I have asked Mr. Foxx to swiftly conclude this matter within the timeframe of the current US political administration. I hope that we can get a resolution on this matter and that Norwegian can begin flying between Shannon and Cork and the US.

“There is enormous potential here for the Southern counties of Ireland. More flights to the US brings connectivity, investment potential, and tourism. It provides us with options and makes us a more attractive prospect for those who are looking to invest and relocate to counties like Cork, Limerick, Clare, Kerry, and Tipperary.”

Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Enda Kenny has previously called on US President Barack Obama to put an end to the delays in establishing the Norwegian Airlines' Cork to Boston route, appealing to “common sense” to end the months-long stalemate on a foreign carrier permit.

NAI originally planned to begin a Cork to Boston route this past summer. They further planned to eventually extend to the service to Barcelona and add a Cork-New York route in 2017. The direct service between Boston and Cork is expected to be offered by the budget carrier four to five days a week, with tickets costing between $300 and $350 for a round trip.

The airline has since been pipped to the post somewhat, as Icelandic airline Wow Air announced last month they would rolling out transatlantic services between eight key North American cities and Cork Airport for less than $163.00 (€149.00) one way as of May 2017.

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2016-11-24T05:37:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/irishvoice/thanksgiving-and-search-for-the-american-dream-for-immigrants-in-usThanksgiving and search for the American Dream for immigrants in US2016-11-25T05:59:14-05:00
It's the season of Thanksgiving, though for many voters it may not feel like there’s much to give thanks for given the result of the presidential election. But that’s not true. The United States is and always will be the land of opportunity, and the American Dream will continue to be a goal for so many regardless of who resides in the White House. Having said that, we feel immense empathy for the immigrant population, particularly our Irish undocumented who are fearful and wondering what the future will hold in a Trump administration. The president-elect certainly used fighting words towards the undocumented and indeed other groups of immigrants – Muslims, Mexicans – in his campaign for the White House, and his supporters will fully expect him to act, and quickly, after he’s been inaugurated. Trump has signaled his first immigration priority will be to deport undocumented aliens with criminal records aside from visa violations – a number that could go as high as three million. And it’s impossible to argue with the logic that someone convicted of a crime, particularly those involving drugs or violence, has no place in this country.

How Trump will deal with the remainder of law-abiding undocumented residents, many of whom are the unspoken engines that drive so many of our industries, remains to be seen, but he won’t be waving a magic wand to make them all go away anytime soon. House Speaker Paul Ryan, a proponent of a path to legalization for the undocumented, recently told CNN that “we are not planning on erecting a deportation force. Donald Trump’s not planning on that.

"I think we should put people's minds at ease: That is not what our focus is. That is not what we're focused on. We're focused on securing the border,” Ryan added.

That’s certainly good to know, and we’ll take the speaker at his word for now. We don’t have any other tangibles at this point as to where Trump plans on going with his immigration-related promises, but he’ll soon find out that talk is one thing; putting words into action in a government that is based on a system of checks and balances is entirely another.

Given that reality, we hope that the undocumented will take a deep breath and try and put their fears aside. If that’s easier said than done, they should know that support is readily available from the Irish immigrant centers throughout the U.S. who are ready to help them navigate these uncertain times.

The Irish still have many friends in Congress, none more than New York Senator Charles Schumer, who last week was elected to the powerful position of Senate minority leader by his colleagues.

Schumer is the best kind of retail politician, a powerful force on Capitol Hill for years who has never forgotten his local roots or the people who vote him into office. He still makes it a point to attend many Irish events throughout the year, and his commitment to the undocumented is real. Having him in our corner will be crucial, and even Trump realizes his savvy, sending out a tweet on Sunday lauding Schumer as able to get things done.

“Good news!” Trump added, and on that we heartily agree with the president-elect.

Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving.

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2016-11-24T05:21:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/irishvoice/finding-joy-as-the-world-burnsFinding joy as the world burns2016-11-23T04:16:42-05:00
Going to work on Wednesday after Election Day was weird. I have tried to come up a word that seems more all-encompassing and less dismissive, but “weird” pretty much sums it up for me. It felt like the world had descended into imitating apocalyptic, dystopian fiction and had been completely thrown off its destined course.

Being on the subway was like being at a wake. Everyone in total silence, staring straight ahead, saddened expressions and averted eyes, scared of accidentally looking at someone who had voted the “wrong way” -- even in New York.

Arriving at work was like being at a funeral Mass. We all remained respectfully silent for the first few hours, privately scrolling through our individual social media feeds, stuffing our brains with the mass media disbelief. The silence broke as we realized that our inboxes were dead silent -- nothing coming in or going out.

Then we began to talk, to share, to well up, to read fragments of stories to each other. Someone brought a large quantity of cake. The working world was at a standstill, and comfort food felt necessary.

Like the obligatory tea and 5,000 sandwiches at Irish funerals that are passed around all day on plates, but sit abandoned on arm chairs and coffee tables because how can we eat? We feel too sick to eat.

Meetings were postponed until next week. Phone calls pushed to the next day. All plans left on hold as the country caught its breath.

It was weird. Indescribably, horribly, inescapably weird.

Over the following days, it was all we talked about -- among friends, colleagues, total strangers. The sheer volume of sadness, anger, frustration, confusion and utter disappointment was and remains overwhelming. As divided as the country has now made itself known to be, the mixture of emotions beholden by the attendees of this national funeral are similarly diverse.

I encountered friends who voted third party in an effort to place emphasis on the failure of the system in place. I encountered others who didn’t vote at all because they feel it was pointless unless residing in a swing state.

What has been the most revelatory thing to me in the last week is how personal the vote is. The reasons that I wanted Hillary to win might be drastically different to why someone else did. The reasons why I find Trump as a president so completely terrifying might not even register with someone else.

As someone who couldn’t even vote, but still lives here, it seems more important now than ever to listen to each other, understand each other, and pull together.

As the news stories of newly appointed and equally abhorrent White House staff, a national influx in hate crimes and the celebratory parades of the Klan pour in, how do we find happiness on a day to day basis to keep our heads above water? To not totally drown in hopelessness?

I think it was around mid-afternoon on Friday that I laughed at something unrelated to recent events, and had a brief moment of total abandon before coming crashing back down to Earth with an overwhelming sense of guilt for having had a spell of joy -- but we need those, BIGLY.

I’m finding proactive joy in signing petitions, supporting protests, and spreading the word to encourage donations to organizations like Planned Parenthood. Important note: you can donate in Mike Pence’s name so that he will get a notification thanking him for his contribution. I highly recommend doing this -- it’s a win/win.

I’m finding distractive joy in the usual millennial outlets of distraction -- otherwise known as Netflix, Spotify, Hulu and Amazon. Submerge yourself in art, music, good writing, literature and harness the power of the arts in times of great struggle. It may seem like little in the way of silver lining or lemonade right now, but under great pressure comes great creation -- comes diamonds.

I’m finding social joy in my best friend of all time -- wine. Kidding. Sort of.

I’m really finding social joy in surrounding myself with people who are feeling similarly wounded yet resilient. People who agree that this will be a hard four years, but that there is a good fight to be fought. People who are by no means dismissing how completely heartbreaking this is, but who are also unwilling to stand by and watch the world burn.

As for romantic joy? I made an internal personal declaration earlier this year that I would only date feminists for the rest of my life. Real feminists.

I had enough of men who claimed to be of the feminist persuasion, but upon feeling any kind of threat to their masculinity would retaliate, resist or attempt to belittle. I had an ex-boyfriend who, during an argument, barked at me to “stop with your feminist BS.”

At the time, I brushed it off. I wonder where he is now, and how he feels about his contribution to making another woman feel like less than she is.

Now, watching as the glass ceiling that came so unbearably close to being eternally shattered, remains quivering in its frame, that personal declaration becomes stronger and more of a constant, externalized announcement. This is no longer a matter of preference, it is a requirement -- one that we should all be ranking highly on our list of what makes a human worthwhile, and worth inclusion in your life, no matter how long they’re going to be there.

We may be feeling tired and burnt out, but like a phoenix, we will rise again from the ashes of this election. We will find our moments of joy, our forms of dedication to the cause, and equally necessary forms of occasional escape.

We will find the people we want standing next to us, and it will become abundantly clear who will no longer want or need. Onwards.

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2016-11-22T05:06:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/could-pete-king-sinn-fein-supporting-ny-congressman-head-homeland-security-for-trumpCould Pete King, Sinn Fein supporting NY congressman, head Homeland Security for Trump? 2016-11-22T04:04:23-05:00
As Donald Trump continues to roll out the "finalists: for his presidential administration, a new name that will be very familiar to Irish Americans has emerged as a contender for a top post: Pete King, the Republican Congressman from Long Island, NY. King, who has served in Congress for 23 years, was mentioned as Trump’s potential pick for his Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. King has been a staunch supporter of Trump since he won the Republican primary, calling his election win "a great day for the American people", and also has an impressive track record in security and counter-terrorism policy, having chaired the House Homeland Security Committee for two terms.

When asked about the Homeland Security post by Newsmax, King said he "had heard rumors about this appointment, but I don't expect it to be offered” and added "My obsession is with the issues of terrorism and security, but I think I can do more on those issues in Congress.”

However, a number of colleagues have come forward to offer their support for King taking the job.

"Pete would be awesome in that job!" former House Intelligence Committee Pete Hoekstra, R.-Mich., told Newsmax, calling him “one of most knowledgeable people in Congress on what threatens Americans."

The role of Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, created in 2001 and currently occupied by Lisa Monaco, involves assessing security risks to the US and advising the president on how to respond.

King has worked productively with the Obama administration, though he also sees eye-to-eye with Trump on a number of the President-elect’s more controversial plans, including strict monitoring for immigrants who come to the US from countries with histories of terrorism.

“In 1982, Mr. King told a rally in Long Island: ‘We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry.’

“Three years later, he declared: ‘If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the IRA for it.’”

He went on to play a crucial role in the Peace Process and the 1994 Ceasefire, and has been praised by both Tony Blair and Bill Clinton for his efforts there. Following September 11, he began calling for the PIRA to disband.

Would you like to see Rep. Pete King take a role in the Trump administration? Share your thoughts in the comment section.

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2016-11-21T15:22:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/niallodowd/hamilton-star-tweeted-about-blacks-and-drunk-women-on-st-patrick-s-day“Hamilton” star tweeted about blacks and drunk women on St. Patrick’s Day2016-11-22T07:02:15-05:00
Brandon Victor Dixon, a star of “Hamilton” as Aaron Burr, addressed Vice President-elect Mike Pence from the stage on Friday on Broadway urging him to change his views on issues such as tolerance and gay rights.

But Dixon was guilty of a very bizarre comment himself involving St. Patrick's Day.

The tweet from 2012 sprang back into prominence on Sunday because of the "Hamilton" furor with many commentators claiming it refers to blacks raping drunken girls on St. Patrick’s Day.

The tweet is certainly open to that interpretation, stating St. Patrick’s Day is like “Christmas for black dudes who like white chicks.”

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2016-11-21T05:52:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/irish-cabinet-minister-slams-vice-prez-mike-pence-on-gay-remarksIrish cabinet minister slams Vice Prez Mike Pence on gay remarks2016-11-21T23:29:42-05:00
Ireland’s first openly gay cabinet minister, Leo Varadkar, has hit out at Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Speaking to Irish radio he said that while he’d like to see the incoming VP visit Ireland he “profoundly disagreed” with his past support for gay conversion therapy. Varadkar is currently favorite to replace Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny as head of Fine Gael when he retires.

Varadkar, who currently serves as Minister for Social Protection and is widely talked about as a future Taoiseach, told listeners of RTÉ’s "Marian Finucane" show, “I don’t like what Trump and Pence stand for, particularly on social issues. The right approach, I think, with anyone is to respect their religion, respect their values and engage with them. That’s how you win over minds and soften hearts.”

“When it comes to Mike Pence, I’d like him to come to Ireland. I’d personally like to meet him. I’d love to tell him my story but more importantly I’d love to tell him the story of our country. The country of his ancestors and how we went from being one of the most conservative countries in the world [to where we are now]. That’s the way to deal with things.”

The Indiana Governor is a proud Irish American; his grandfather, Richard Michael Cawley, emigrated from County Sligo in 1923 and his great-grandmother came Co. Clare.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny received much criticism on social media after calling Pence on Friday in order to discuss the undocumented Irish, and, following the call, tweeting, “He [Pence] certainly knows Ireland and the issues that matter to our people.”

Despite the Republican Party’s hard-line anti-immigration platform, many consider Pence a potential ally within the new administration who could help get a deal for the estimated 50,000 undocumented Irish citizens living in America. In 2009 he was one of the few Republicans to meet the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) while Congress was considering immigration reform, citing “April 11, 1923”, the date his grandfather landed at Ellis Island, as a reason.

Varadkar praised his boss’s diplomatic approach saying, “The most important thing to bear in mind is that the links that exist between Ireland and America are economic, they’re cultural, they’re family. Presidents and Vice Presidents, Taoisigh [Irish Prime Ministers] and ministers come and go but it’s very important that we maintain those links.”

He also weighed in on the controversy surrounding the VP-elect’s visit to see a Broadway show Friday, saying, “It was quite ugly. He was booed on his entrance, booed during the play but at the end what happened was something very beautiful in my view and very powerful; as he was about to leave the cast lined up on the stage and the main actor who actually played a Vice President, Vice President Burr.. he stood up and spoke to Mike Pence and he welcomed him, said he hoped he’d took something from it... and he expressed the concerns of some Americans that the new administration might not protect them and that it might undermine inalienable rights and freedoms that are so much part of America.

“And to me I felt that was the right approach, that's the approach we should have when we deal with the new administration.”

37-year-old Leo Varadkar studied medicine at Trinity College, Dublin and was elected to the Dáil to represent the suburban constituency of Dublin West in 2007. Dubbed something of a rising star he was quickly promoted to the Fine Gael party’s frontbench where he was made its spokesman for Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

When the party was returned to Government in 2011 he was made Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport in something of a shock move. He said at the time that while he knew, “a lot of facts...I don't play the sports."

He was later moved to the Department of Health and in the run up to Ireland’s referendum on same sex marriage in 2015 he came out publicly as a gay man, telling RTÉ, "it’s not something that defines me. I'm not a half-Indian politician, or a doctor politician or a gay politician for that matter. It’s just part of who I am, it doesn't define me, it is part of my character I suppose".

With Taoiseach Enda Kenny tipped to retire at some point within the next few years, Varadkar is the current favorite to succeed him; the Irish Times has described him as “leading the race” and in a poll last month the Sunday Independent 39% of voters backed him for the top job, 14 points higher than the number who supported his rumored rival Simon Coveney, the current Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government.

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2016-11-21T05:23:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/irishvoice/bono-calls-for-equality-from-trumpBono calls for equality from Trump2016-11-22T04:04:18-05:00
U2 frontman Bono was front and center in his criticism of Donald Trump prior to the election, telling Charlie Rose that Trump “is potentially the worst idea that ever happened to America. He could destroy it."

On Monday night in Los Angeles, in his first public comments since Trump’s White House victory, Bono had words of advice.

“I say to the president-elect: Look across to women. Make equality a priority. It is the only way forward. The train is leaving the station. Be on it or be under it,” Bono said in a speech at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards, where he was named as the first male recipient of one of the magazine’s honors.

Bono alluded to Trump, without mentioning him by name, in many parts of his speech.

“There is nowhere on Earth where women have the same opportunities as men, and that unless we address this problem, both women and men together—our world will continue down this misogynistic, violent, and impoverished path. Sounds like 2016 to me. What a year,” he said.

“In Europe, we’ve seen hate attacks and neo-Nazis on the rise, and in America, you have the first R-rated election—not suitable for children. An NC-17 election.

“And 2016 might have been the year when I stopped believing Martin Luther King Jr. when he said, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’ This might be the year when I stop believing that progress for equality was inevitable—that the momentum is unstoppable.”

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2016-11-21T05:12:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/irishvoice/trump-sends-irish-media-into-meltdownTrump sends Irish media into meltdown2016-11-21T09:56:43-05:00* Published on Wednesday, November 16, in the Irish Voice.

Let's all take a verydeep breath. Certainly a lot of people in Ireland need to.

The Donald Trump triumph has seen an unprecedented outpouring of disgust, despair and fury from media commentators in Ireland over the past week. This has included predictions that America is doomed, that human rights there have been set back 50 years, that global security is in peril ... and that's just the start of it. It's the end of civilized society, it seems.

Some of the most fraught reaction has come from the more "intellectual" end of the media spectrum here, with several writers almost having nervous breakdowns in print. To these emotionally incontinent scribes all we can say is calm down, it's not going to be that bad.

We're all horrified, but ridiculing Trump and, even worse, patronizing his supporters (they're not "college educated" like us) is not going to get us anywhere.

The media in America are equally aghast, but at least some of them have been trying to figure out how they got it so wrong, instead of just having a whinge-fest. Here, it's simply been an orgy of superiority and derision, with each writer trying to sound more nauseated and outraged than the next.

Of course some of this is understandable. The crude, offensive language used by Trump during the campaign, the name calling, the simplistic slogans (Build the Wall, Lock Her Up, Drain the Swamp, etc.) lowered the election to a depth never before plumbed in a presidential race.

But some of the commentators here who have been most horrified by the Trump victory are now playing the same reductionist game, using simplistic labels instead of a thorough analysis of what was being said.

So they refer to Trump as racist, misogynistic, xenophobic and half a dozen other unacceptable characteristics, often listed in a single sentence. But, despite what he said at various times on the stump, that is a simplistic reduction of what he was trying to articulate.

A big part of the problem with Trump is that, compared to someone like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, he is barely articulate. He expresses himself clumsily in disjointed phrases instead of in polished, nuanced sentences like a skillful politician.

Let's take the two most quoted examples. He thinks Mexicans are rapists and murderers and he wants to ban Muslims, so that makes him a racist twice over, right? Except that is not exactly what he said. He said someMexicans who get into the U.S. turn out to be criminal -- including rapists and murderers -- and there has been a problem trying to remove them and keep them out, which is true. So he wants to build a wall (in other words have a secure southern border).

He said that banning Muslims from entering the country might be necessary "until we can figure out what the hell is going on," referring to an immigration system that has failed to identify radicalized individuals from a Muslim background who might pose a threat to Americans. The implication is that when the system is brought up to speed, such a ban will no longer be necessary.

It's worth remembering that ISIS have said that they are infiltrating flows of migrants from Syria and elsewhere, and also that various countries in Europe have built fences to control migration. Trump has made it clear that he wants controlled, legal immigration, a view shared by many in Europe.

Does his remarks about Mexicans and Muslims make him guilty of racial profiling? Possibly. But does it prove that he is a full blown racist? Probably not.

The other example, the misogyny accusation, was largely based on his foul-mouthed boasting on a secretly recorded tape from 2005 when he was a TV star. His comments were grossly offensive and he has apologized, saying it was "locker-room talk."

Does it prove that he was then, and still is, a misogynist? Not, it seems, in the view of the 53 percent of white women who voted for him in the election.

No doubt they found it juvenile and disgusting -- and it was -- but they were prepared to let it go because, just like male voters, they felt there were bigger issues to be considered, like jobs and the economy. Plus they may have felt that he was no worse than Bill Clinton or President John F. Kennedy, neither of whom have been condemned for their sexual behavior by the liberal elite in the same way that Trump has.

Where the groping allegations are concerned, so far nothing has been proved. And the allegations relate to unwanted advances and groping, but not violent behavior.

So is he a misogynist? Probably not, even though his Neanderthal, alpha male tendencies (despite the small hands!) are a bit sad in these more enlightened times.

The tone of much of the reaction to the Trump triumph indicates that what is really upsetting commentators both here and in the U.S. is less about racism and misogyny (and the rest of it) and far more about their view of Trump as a boorish bully, a crude manipulator with no finesse, a sleazy chancer with lots of money but no taste. He's not one of us, you see, not with that hair and all that fake marble and gold in that gross apartment he inhabits in Trump Tower.

He may have offended the sensibilities of the liberal elite, who all think he is appalling, but for the people who voted for him these things do not matter. They saw a straight talker with a can-do attitude who was promising to fix what was wrong. And the fact is there is a great deal wrong in parts of America where people either have no jobs or have not had a pay increase in 10 years or more.

The ridiculing of Trump's Make America Great Again slogan missed the point. Clinton’s pathetic response that America Is Great Already was even more evidence to these voters that she was out of touch. America is not so great in places like Detroit, where up to a third of the population has left, most of them middle class, leaving behind those existing on welfare in areas made derelict by drugs and violence.

Clinton’s belittling of Trump's commitment to rebuild the inner cities in places like Detroit was an odd stance for a Democrat to take. And this apparent ignorance of the reality of life for so many ordinary Americans across the Rust Belt, in the steel towns and coal mining areas and other places where jobs had been lost, turned voters there away from her.

One point that most of the commentators here (and in the U.S.) have missed is that some parts of Trump's economic plan are the kind of left-of-center initiatives one would expect from the Labour Party in Britain or the Democrats in the U.S. A trillion dollars is to be spent on upgrading infrastructure -- building roads, bridges, schools, hospitals and so on -- which will give badly needed jobs to blue collar workers across America as well as being money well spent. It's classic Roosevelt New Deal stuff.

Similarly with the promised renegotiation of free trade deals that are sucking jobs out of the U.S. Such deals work well when the countries involved have similar wage levels. When there is a huge gap -- like between Mexico or China and the U.S. -- there are problems.

This has been obvious in the behavior of the many U.S. companies that want to have it both ways. They want to produce in low cost countries like Mexico and then sell at high prices in the U.S., free of tariffs. The ones who lose are ordinary American workers.

In response to the strong desire for change in these depressed areas, what was Clinton’s plan? Right ... I don't know either, except that it was going to be more of the same.

What people wanted was real change that would improve their lives quickly. But instead of offering a drastic plan of action like Trump, all Clinton appeared to be offering was a continuation of the Obama policies.

Obama is cool, clever and an inspiring speaker. It's easy to admire him.

But what has he done? A lot but not enough, was the answer for many Americans.

Yes, the economy is now recovering and jobs are being created in some areas. But many voters simply felt the pace was too slow or the recovery had passed by their towns and cities altogether.

Added to this, of course, was the fact that Clinton, despite all her experience, was a less than inspiring candidate. But President Obama and the Democratic Party are as much to blame for the outcome. After all that ringing talk of hope and change, where was the evidence that things would ever get better in the poorer parts of the country, the areas where the Democrats should be the natural choice?

Why, in God's name, was it left to someone like Trump to come up with a massive spending plan to create jobs? Or a plan to make American corporate tax rates competitive and thereby keep jobs in the U.S. and also get the big American multi-national companies to bring the trillions they are holding overseas back into the country for investment at home? Or a really effective plan to deal with illegal immigration?

In comparison with Clinton, a dignified and decent person with a lifetime of public service, Trump appeared almost like a grotesque sideshow. But he offered solutions, even if the things he said went far beyond a lack of political correctness. He sucked the publicity away from her and gave the impression that as a businessman he could cut through the established order and bring real change.

His success may well be a portent of similar developments in Europe, where there is a growing impatience among voters with the left of centre consensus. There are elections next year in Germany, France and the Netherlands and the political establishment there may also be in for a rude awakening from voters who are tired of being patronized and having their views ignored.

Trump, as you know, is already walking back some of the more extreme positions that his slogans implied. Build the Wall may in the end simply mean more fencing and more effective border control using the latest technology. He has already said that he wants to keep elements of Obamacare in whatever new system replaces it.

And that is just the start of it. His economic plans in the end may position him as a centrist, a considerable distance from the far right of the Republican party.

Those economic plans will pose great difficulties for Ireland, which is hugely dependent on the big American companies who have set up here. If Trump presses ahead quickly to cut corporate tax rates and bring jobs back to the U.S. we will be hit much harder than other European countries.

Coupled with the Brexit effect, this country is facing a huge challenge. We can appeal to Trump's better nature (if we can find it) and we can bring him an even bigger bowl of shamrock next St. Patrick's Day. But it may make no difference.

He will, as he has said, put America first. That's why he got elected.

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2016-11-21T05:09:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/others/trump-and-brexit-votes-leave-young-irish-uncertain-and-afraid Trump and Brexit votes leave young Irish uncertain and afraid 2016-11-19T07:12:53-05:00As Ireland finds itself as the stuffing in the least desirable sandwich of the world, with Trump to the left and Brexit to the right, I cannot help but wonder what this means for younger generations. As a General Adult Psychiatrist, I have always marveled at the resilience of the young, their endless enthusiasm and their immature optimism, which seems to be suppressed as years and obstacles start piling upon them.

I remember distinctly the morning the Brexit result was announced. The sun was shining lazily over Dublin, a rare sighting all of us living here have come to cherish. It was as early as 7am when I spoke to my surgeon friend in Glasgow, close to my age, to share my astonishment. In her Celtic wisdom, she succinctly responded: “we are feeling uncertain, but a wee bit of uncertainty never killed anyone. The problem is we feel uncertain, but we are also afraid.”

The policies of fear that aimed at the vulnerabilities of the psyche certainly helped Trump and Brexit happen. How can any seasoned adult not fall prey for the promise of tightened security, of eradicating the ‘threat’ of the uninvited immigrants and terrorists, of closing our borders so we isolate our countries, our culture, our economy, and our lives, from the menaces of the outside? But the young are not so foolish.

A young mind is open to change, a young mind is permeable to experiences, is avid for a cultural clash, is eager to learn, is curious to explore. The young mind knows that one day we find ourselves owners of our land, and tomorrow we might be travelling somewhere, where we become the unexpected immigrants. The young mind knows that femicide and racist crimes are also terrorism, that frontiers are imaginary lines drawn on an imaginary map, and that it is better to be citizens of the world than presidents of our own problems.

“I voted yes to Brexit,” an English man in his late eighties proudly exclaimed on national television, “because I want my country to be the way it was.” Immediately, images of the Kings and Queens of the British Monarchy started paraded in my mind. Is that what this man, and the rest of the British population who voted to exit the European Union, crave? The stale guidelines and anachronistic splendour of a figurative Monarchy, now opaque and inoperant in a modern world of science, foreign politics and technology? Isn’t that a reflection of the selfishness than prevails in our Western World? The young vote undoubtedly failed. Are we making them more vulnerable, instead of empowering them with a strength that will carry them as the future of the world?

A politics students from University College Dublin (UCD), born and bred in Northern Ireland, glumly said to me last week: “thank God Dublin is close to Belfast, I might have to move back home to finish my degree with Brexit.” I shared my sympathies with her, she had just turned 20 years old, and I, being 8 years older than her, felt small and puzzled. Another student from UCD, also 20 and studying law, asked me how Trump and Brexit would affect Argentina, my home country. I laughed his question off, “we have bigger problems down there, dear.” He nodded, and silenced me with a statement I failed to retort, “well, we have bigger problems up here in Ireland too.” He was probably referring to the 2500 homeless children plaguing the streets, or the recent plea from First Aid Ireland not “abandon your drunken friends”, since they are at risk of hypothermia, coma and death. Huge problems indeed.

The burden of alcoholism and heroin consumption in adolescents do not surprise me. The latest HSE reports show that 35% of all psychiatric admissions were aged 17 years on admission, 33% were aged 16 years, 13% were aged 15 years, 11% were aged 14 years and a further 7% were aged 11–13 years (HRB.ie). Similar proportions were observed for first admissions. 57% of all admissions and of first admissions in child and adolescent units were female, a clear sign of the increase of Borderline Personality Disorder in young females in Ireland, presenting with depressive symptoms and eating disorders.

The figures don’t shock me. Even before the votes of the latest election were counted in the United States, phone calls and texts were pouring into suicide hotlines and crisis networks in record numbers. Americans, especially young and from the LGBT communities, were crying for help in desperation. This fact doesn’t shock me; the Irish mental health figures don’t shock me. Maybe they should, but they don’t, because our minds and their bodies echo with frustration, pain, and suffering, when their speaking voices are unheard.

When I find myself overwhelmed by my own thoughts, I empty them on paper, my own therapeutic escape to dispel anxiety and hopelessness. I recently wrote my first novel, “Lucy in the Skye”, the raw, complex, honest story of a young Irish American (and a little Argentinean) woman, trying to battle her way through womanhood and independence, while she struggles with her own crumbling mental health and the stigma it entails. In the words of Lucy Skye: “…pain, sometimes, is the only thing that reminds us we are still alive.”

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Dr. Carolina Giacobone, MD is a General Adult Psychiatrist and CBT Psychotherapist. More about "Lucy in the Skye" here.

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2016-11-19T08:00:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/irish-american-councilman-receives-death-threat-over-trump-protestIrish American Councilman receives death threat over Trump protest2016-11-18T14:08:10-05:00Irish American Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, 47, a rising star in New York City’s Democratic political circles, has received a death threat following his announcement of a march to protest Donald Trump’s policies to be held this Saturday. A planning meeting for the march drew nearly 700 Queens residents and concerned citizens.

In an e-mail sent to his office on Thursday afternoon, an unidentified poster claimed Van Bramer was a traitor who should be executed.

The threat came half an hour after Van Bramer’s office sent a mass e-mail to constituents reminding them about Saturday’s march, which he will lead across the Queensboro Bridge to Trump Tower, where participants plan to protest the President Elect’s discriminatory pledges.

In the threatening letter the poster called the the meeting's 700 attendees and expected march participants “communistic socialists” who were destroying the neighborhood.

The poster continued: “The rest of the people from Queens do not agree with your homosexual lifestyle (Van Bramer is married to his longtime same-sex partner) so get the f--k out of this country, you f--king traitor.”

“I will keep a close eye on your every move so that when it’s time to execute traitors, I will try my best so that your name is included in that list of traitors. Execution is the penalty for a traitor, that is the Law of this Land.”

According to The Sunnyside Post the NYPD is now investigating the matter.

Van Bramer is unbowed by the threat. “I’m not terrified and I’m certainly not stopping,” he told the press on Thursday.

Van Bramer is city councilman for Long Island City, Astoria, Sunnyside and Woodside. His family is mostly Irish-American and he is the fifth of eight children in a practicing Catholic family.

“We may not be able to reverse the results of this election but we can and should fulfill our obligation to resist all these things which have been explicitly promised and threatened by Trump and Pence,” Van Bramer said in a statement earlier in the week outlining the rationale for the march.

“I fully support and am even encouraged by the hundreds of thousands of people who have peacefully taken to the streets all over the country.”

The protest march will start at 1 P.M. on Saturday, November 19, at Northern Boulevard and Queens Plaza North in Long Island City.

Participants will then march over the Queensboro Bridge to Trump Tower at 725 Fifth Avenue.

Van Bramer has received an outpouring of support on Twitter, with many reaffirming their commitment to the march.

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2016-11-18T12:37:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/cahirodoherty/change-discrimination-and-remember-where-you-came-fromChange discrimination and remember where you came from2016-11-18T07:43:42-05:00
Discrimination, when it's directed at you, can shape the course of your life. It can prevent you from having a say in what happens to you, where you can go, what you can do.

It shuts you up and shuts you out. That’s actually its main function, to rob you of your voice.

By almost every metric I know I've been happily married to my American husband for 18 years, but the Supreme Court ruling that permitted us to marry under the law was only decided in 2015, meaning there was still not enough time for me to become a United States citizen and vote in the presidential election last week.

Now, I have lived and worked here legally for all that time, I have paid my taxes, and tens of thousands of dollars in lawyers' and visa-processing fees, but I have enjoyed fewer rights for all that expenditure and I still do.

One thing I know for certain is that my halting journey toward citizenship didn’t affect you or benefit me. It has simply robbed me of making my full contribution, or of reaching my full potential, over and over again, because I was hamstrung by laws that have their origin in prejudice.

So in a real sense everyone loses. If I had a vote in the presidential election last week I would have cast it for a candidate who wanted to expand rights, not remove them. I would have voted for the candidate who respects all Americans, and all intending Americans, and not just the favored few.

There’s something very 19th century about my experiences in the 21st century. More than once I have found myself thinking of our roundly despised and feared Irish forefathers as they stepped off coffin ships near the Five Points in the late 1840s and 1850s.

Exiled at home and unwelcome abroad, there was seemingly no end to the discrimination that would shape the character of their lives. First they were driven from the land of their birth, then they were forced to make perilous sea journeys, then they were greeted in the new world with the fired stones and angry insults of the nativist mobs.

They must have felt like strangers on Earth. They must have wondered who made the world the way it was and who exactly benefited from it? They must have been radicalized by their own experiences too (when they were not being driven to despair or criminality or alcoholism by a system that seemingly existed only to cheat them).

Now I know that I would able to look the Irish of the Five Points in the eye. I understand the baleful forces that surrounded them because those forces have persisted and have been handed down, in one form or another, all of this time.

That’s why it has disappointed me so much to see just how many of the descendants of the immigrant Irish lined up to participate in the same kind of immigrant bashing that once menaced their own ancestors.

With their cries of “Build That Wall!” they were the echo of the long dead people who tried to prevent our great-grandfathers from making lives for themselves here, free of insult and discrimination.

The rich have always prospered by encouraging the poor to attack each other. From their golden mansions they incite the rabble then stand well back, protected by their wealth from the consequences of their foul actions.

Immigrants are rarely protected by wealth. Instead, they mostly live at the business end of racism and bigotry. It’s not a comfortable place to find yourself.

We should know that. We should remember the hard experiences of the Irish people who came here before us. We should be handing down the lessons they learned, not reenacting the hatred they encountered.

I actually have some hope that we can end this stupid anti-immigrant pantomime that deforms our politics once and for all. We can do this by just remembering where we came from, on whose shoulders we are standing.

We can and should honor the brutal sacrifices of the first waves of immigrant Irish by ensuring that no one else is ever forced to make them. And it will be easy, because all we ever have to do is look at the people who desperately want to live in this remarkable country and see ourselves.

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2016-11-18T07:00:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/irishvoice/do-election-results-show-anti-immigrant-sentiment-in-the-irish-american-communityDo election results show anti-immigrant sentiment in the Irish American community?2016-11-19T06:27:22-05:00
Last week the website DNAinfo released a map that showed how each neighborhood in New York City voted. It made for some interesting reading.

Some of the results were expected. For example, 79 percent of New Yorkers voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton for president, down from 81 percent for Barack Obama in 2012.

But what caught my eye was how many Irish American neighborhoods had clearly broken for Donald Trump. Far Rockaway was a tiny island of red in a sea of blue. So was Middle Village in Queens, and so was most of Staten Island.

Sunnyside and Woodside had stayed dependably blue this cycle, but they are a home to the arriving Irish, meaning those who have come here within a generation or two, and many of our currently Irish undocumented.

It’s estimated that there are 50,000 undocumented Irish people living in America now. By voting for Trump, it seems to me that many Irish American voters endorsed his anti-immigrant polices and pulled the ladder up on a path to citizenship for their vulnerable countrymen.

I know that’s controversial to say, but so are the anti-immigrant statements of the man they just passionately supported. On Sunday Trump was on TV vowing to deport two to three million of the undocumented, and failing to clarify exactly who he was talking about.

“What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records -- gang members, drug dealers, we have a lot of these people, probably two million, it could be even three million. We are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate,” Trump said.

“But we’re getting them out of our country. They’re here illegally.”

The Obama administration estimates that there are 1.9 million “removable criminal aliens” currently in the United States, and that number includes people who hold green cards and those who have temporary visas.

It also includes people who have been convicted of nonviolent crimes such as theft, not just felonies or gang-related violence. That leaves another one million to be accounted for. Who will they be?

The truth is that neither the Obama administration (which has set a record for deportations) nor the incoming Trump one has the budget or the manpower to enforce a three million people deportation push.

But for the undocumented that’s not the only threat. It’s the hostile climate that Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric creates that curtails their chances of making a decent life here. People are endlessly talking about a crackdown because Trump has been talking about one for 18 months.

Potential employers could be hit with biting legislation that makes it impossible to hire the undocumented some say; others say threats will be made to cut federal funding to “sanctuary” cities like New York if they refuse to help federal agents plan and carry out their immigration swoops.

In Queens, the most diverse borough in the world, the press was suddenly filled with reports of bias attacks and anti-immigrant incidents this week. In my own neighborhood I know of two hard working immigrants who had profanity filled versions of “you’re going home” shouted at them within three days of the election. Both are legally present in this country.

Because the GOP will the House, the Senate and the White House, it strengthens their hand when it comes to any potential actions on immigration they could take. Meanwhile, immigrants rights groups are telling the undocumented Irish not to panic.

Well it may be too early for hysteria, but the picture looks decidedly bleak for any kind of immigration reform, or even compromise, or indeed any political discussion that could help those 50,000 Irish out of the shadows. That means there are four or perhaps eight long years ahead with no change in fortune on the cards. Deadlock is the best we can hope for.

All our politicians have been conspicuous by their absence on this issue. Last week I wrote that immigration – and unspoken fear of Muslim immigration in particular – is retarding our politics and damaging our progress nationally, because behind our hostility to immigration reforms lies visceral fear.

Each time our Irish American community breaks towards anti-immigrant leaders like Trump, they curtail the dreams of our Irish undocumented, exiling them to low paid jobs, uncertain prospects, compromised lives.

So this November we voted to make the lives of the Irish living in the shadows here much harder, and we cannot claim otherwise. We voted our fears rather than our hopes.

Whatever happens to them in the next four years is on us.

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2016-11-18T00:55:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/irishvoice/final-questions-for-the-irish-who-voted-trump-into-officeFinal questions for the Irish who voted Trump into office2016-11-21T09:56:57-05:00
The election is over, and thank God. No, I’m not thrilled by the outcome, but it’s no time to take to the streets. The guy won.

No, not the popular vote. But he won the election. Let’s all take a breath.

All along, the idea that Donald Trump was appealing only to poor rednecks was simplistic. I grew up and baptized all four of my kids in sections of Staten Island that ended up voting about 75 percent for the guy. Those folks are many things but they ain’t rednecks, unless they happen to have spilled a little Chianti down their chins.

In the build-up to the election, as I walked or drove through those streets with their many Trump signs, I knew there was an urban white ethnic Trump vote. The Irish still make up a healthy chunk of that.

Just look at a voting breakdowns in New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

Yes, Hillary Clinton crushed Trump in New York City. But not in Irish enclaves like Breezy Point or Broad Channel, Queens, where in some districts Trump got up to 75 percent of the vote, according to dnainfo.com.

He had similar showings in heavily white Catholic enclaves in Brooklyn, such as Mill Basin, Gerritsen Beach and Marine Park.

Things were a little tighter in traditionally Irish Queens neighborhoods like Maspeth and Middle Village, but Trump still pulled in 55 percent of the vote there. He even won at least one district in the Bronx’s famously Irish Woodlawn.

The story was no different outside city centers in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. The cities went for Clinton, but when you go out into the nearby suburbs and towns, where many Irish and other ethnic Catholics have migrated, the map turns a Trumpian red.

In New York and Massachusetts this didn’t impact the overall election results. But this was much more significant in Pennsylvania, which is worth 20 electoral votes and sealed Trump’s victory. Trump won those electoral votes by little more than 50,000 votes, out of nearly six million cast.

In Pennsylvania, too, the cities were blue but they were ringed by red suburbs and towns. Look no further than Scranton, birthplace of our current Irish Catholic Vice President Joe Biden. Located in Lackawanna County, this has long been a Democratic stronghold.

President Obama won nearly 65 percent of Lackawanna’s vote in 2012. But Trump nearly beat Clinton there last week.

In Pennsylvania’s Elk County, which is about 70 percent Catholic, Trump won 70 percent of the vote.

Overall, national exit polls show that Trump won the Catholic vote 52 percent to 45 percent. This New York Times analysis of religion is not broken down by race, but since Hispanics generally went heavier for Clinton, we can assume that white Catholics -- including Irish Americans -- were even more heavily in favor of Trump.

And so, we set off on an interesting four-year ride. This is not necessarily a new phenomenon. Irish Catholics were a big part of the conservative Reagan, and even Nixon, coalitions.

There are questions, though, that must be posed, especially to Trump’s Irish Catholic voters.

Trump actually performed better among more affluent voters, so the idea that Trump’s revolution was class-based is also flawed. Many of his supporters, instead, believe America is headed in the “wrong direction.” Immigration is often cited as part of that.

It was Irish Catholics -- and Italians and Jews and other immigrants -- who were ruining America 100 years ago, in the eyes of worried WASPs. Yet we assimilated and became not only Americans but particularly patriotic. So patriotic that the majority of us now seem to believe only Trump can “save” this country.

Are we, now, the worried WASPs? Why do so many grandchildren of immigrants believe today’s immigrants will not assimilate just as our ancestors did and become equally patriotic? Isn’t the patriotism and success of Trump’s Catholic voters proof that the American Dream is real?

Should we deny today’s immigrants and their children access to the dream that came true for the vast majority of our own parents and grandparents?

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2016-11-18T00:40:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/irishvoice/the-election-was-hillary-s-until-it-wasn-tThe election was Hillary’s… until it wasn’t2016-11-21T09:57:26-05:00
Hillary Clinton's sensational defeat in the U.S. presidential election played out for me last like the description of the man who went bankrupt.

Asked how bankruptcy happened, he said it was slowly at first then all of a sudden…

So it was with the electoral map that doomed Clinton on Tuesday night. As a Clinton supporter, buoyed by polling showing her ahead, I was very confident.

Until I wasn't...

By mid-afternoon on Tuesday her staff were positively giddy, brandishing polls and exit interviews that showed their candidate up by four or five points.

The first signs of illness in the patient were not noticed until the Florida and North Carolina vote counts were displayed on screen.

Both were known to be tight, but Clinton needed to duplicate Barack Obama’s strategy of running big in urban areas and holding on in rural ones.

Soon it became apparent that Donald Trump was running up bigger margins of victory in rural Florida than Mitt Romney (how good he looks nowadays) in 2012. In addition, especially in North Carolina, the African-American vote was down on when Obama ran which was understandable, but not the extent of it.

That was a pattern repeated across the map, with Trump handily beating Romney’s numbers in rural areas and Democrats disappointing in their own redoubts.

Soon the infection began spreading. African American turnout was well lower in North Carolina and suddenly Virginia, which had seemed solidly in the Clinton corner, was deemed too close to call.

The massive crowd at the Javits Center on Manhattan's West Side who had come to party and applaud the first women president suddenly grew quieter.

Soon the vast glass-enclosed roof structure seemed like a mausoleum, like somewhere an incredible career culminating in the presidency had come to die.

Upstairs in the nearby Peninsula Hotel where Bill and Hillary were staying in -- where else? -- the presidential suite, the mood had grown especially somber.

Aides described Bill Clinton, still the greatest vote counter in American politics, frantically pursuing voting charts and muttering about the working class white vote.

It was easy to understand the fear. The Democratic Blue Wall, the 18 states that had voted for the party candidate since 1992, was suddenly crumbling.

The Upper Midwest was where the infection raged. Wisconsin, considered so safe that Clinton didn’t even campaign there, was under pressure. So was Ohio, the great bellwether state, and so, amazingly, further south was Pennsylvania, the lynchpin of the blue wall strategy.

Over at Trump HQ in the Hilton Hotel, the exact opposite exercise was underway.

There, a crowd that had come to witness their candidate perform well but probably not well enough were suddenly energized by the explosive news from the massive television screens blasting away over their heads.

Could the impossible happen? Could the man behind in almost every poll on Election Day and widely dismissed as a political interloper with few skills be suddenly charging hard for the White House?

It was indeed possible.

It has been a wild ride. Two weeks before he entered the race on June 26, 2015, Trump and Bill Clinton, then friends, discussed whether he should run or not. The discussion topic had never been revealed but it is believed that Clinton encouraged him, thinking he would run interference with other more serious candidates like Jeb Bush.

Trump was widely mocked after his speech about entering the race because of his inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants. But he knew exactly what he was doing: divide and conquer.

So he took off with the working classes, who had long trumpeted immigrants as job stealers and were mad as hell about Washington and Wall Street elites.

In the summer and early autumn his campaign appeared to stall, with Hillary Clinton’s convention speech far outranking Trump’s. Then Hillary beat him, according to independent polls, in all three debates. She looked on her way to victory.

Then came the two October surprises, the drip-drip of WikiLeaks and the astonishing intervention of the FBI chief James Comey reopening a previously closed investigation into her email server.

Comey said “nothing to see here” a few days before the election, but the damage had been done as the polls closed in rapidly once again.

Clinton still seemed to have the edge going towards Election Day, but Trump had by far the better television presence and command of the all-important medium.

Clinton’s campaign, awash with polls, internal numbers and hi-tech modeling, lost sight of the voters and seemed to lose sight of what was happening to their firewall in the Midwest.

Only Bill Clinton kept asking, "What are we doing about blue collar workers? There was no reply from campaign chairman John Podesta or director Robby Mook.

The answer as the world saw on Tuesday was nothing. Essentially ignored by the Democrats and embraced by Trump, blue collar, white ethnic Americans cast their vote for the Republican candidate for the first time in decades.

And as a result Donald Trump won the White House.

Yes, that Donald Trump. Do we wake or dream?

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2016-11-18T00:33:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/irishvoice/irish-celebrities-are-mad-about-donald-trumpIrish celebrities are mad about Donald Trump 2016-11-20T07:07:01-05:00
Ireland's PM Enda Kenny congratulated Donald Trump last week on behalf of “the people of Ireland,” but many of his better-known citizens are appalled at the notion of Trump getting the White House keys.

One Direction member and now solo star Niall Horan, from Co. Westmeath, feels American voters will be fed up with the Trumpster in 2020. “Grin and bare (sic) with this guy. No one knows what to expect, everyone's nervous but I'm sure the American people will have more sense in 4 years,” Horan tweeted.

Grin and bare with this guy.No one knows what to expect ,everyone's nervous but I'm sure the American people will have more sense in 4 years

“It's a sad state of affairs but the one thing you can take from it is that map they've shown of how the young people voted,” he added, referring to millennials favoring Hillary Clinton more than Trump.

Actor/comedian Chris O’Dowd, a Roscommon native, tried to be funny but couldn’t mask his distaste for the result.

“Hey, it's been fun, but make no mistake, the other thing that happened tonight is that Twitter died,” he remarked on his BigBoyler handle.

'O the women this will build. O the relentless women. O the fierce women. You were afraid before? you're putty now you pussy, o the women!'

Conor McGregor famously said “I don’t give a f*** about Donald Trump” last year, not because of politics but over Trump’s slamming fellow UFC star Ronda Rousey.

Though he didn’t comment on Trump’s election after his Madison Square Garden fight last weekend – and, in fact, Trump was thinking of attending as he’s close friends with UFC boss Dana White – McGregor was videoed at his after-party at Marquee nightclub dancing and mouthing words to a rap song that likely sums up his feelings on the president-elect: “F*** Donald Trump.”

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2016-11-18T00:21:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/irish-echo/bid-to-draft-congressman-joe-crowley-into-democrat-leadership-role Congressman Joe Crowley announces bid for a Democrat leadership role2016-11-17T21:25:02-05:00
Congressman Joe Crowley has announced he is seeking the Chairmanship of the Democratic Caucus while Congressman Tim Ryan has announced he will fight current Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Crowley is currently Vice Chair of the caucus and by far the youngest at 54 of the top five leaders of the Democratic party. Crowley is extremely popular inIrishh American circles.

Ryan, from Ohio is a longshot against Pelosi given that she claims she has two-thirds of the Caucus behind her.

However many Dems believe Pelosi at 76 should step aside and allow a younger face to take over, Ryan was briefly mentioned as a Vice Presidential pick for Hillary Clinton.

In his announcement statement Crowley said: "I grew up in working-class Queens, New York – only a few miles away from where Donald Trump himself grew up, yet very much on the other side of the tracks. Mr. Trump and I certainly experienced two very different upbringings, and chose two very different paths in life. I grew up the son of an immigrant mother and a New York City policeman father in a community sustained by working-class and, in many cases, first-generation Americans. It’s a community populated by firefighters, teachers, construction workers, small-business owners, and new immigrants. They all feel uncertain about their economic futures, like many Americans across the country.

My district is one of the most diverse places in the nation, but what my constituents all have in common is a desire to ensure a better life for themselves and their children. For us to help them make that dream a reality, we need to make sure that all of our communities feel we are listening to them, hearing their voices, and gaining a better understanding of their struggles. It is the only way we will be able to show the American people we are on their side and bring them back to us. I believe I can help build bridges to all Americans.

his is a critical time for our party and our caucus. We need independent messengers who can go toe-to-toe with a President Trump and stand up for Americans who feel left behind – and who will certainly be left behind by Republican attempts to end Medicare and Social Security, offer tax breaks for the rich, and gut investments in job training and education. I have always fought against bullies, and that’s how we need to approach the biggest bully of all for the next four years. It is more important than ever that we keep fighting – against damaging Republican attempts to roll back all the good work we did with President Obama, but also for policies that ensure good jobs for all Americans and strengthen working families. I am confident that our caucus has the tools and the talent to make our case to the American people and regain their hearts and minds.

I am proud to be a Democrat. We are the party of the people, the party that is welcoming to all. I hope you will provide me with the opportunity to serve as your Caucus Chair so I can help to ensure that our message is being spread to every community and every American. Thank you."

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2016-11-17T14:00:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/do-breitbart-and-steve-bannon-plan-to-redraw-the-western-political-mapDo Breitbart and Steve Bannon plan to redraw the western political map?2016-11-17T21:25:37-05:00
It’s still too early to tell if Donald Trump’s victory represents the restoration of the far right in America or a final belated sunset cruise, but frankly, it doesn’t matter, since they’re here now and they move fast.

If you think you have months or weeks to combat the destructive and exclusionary agenda Trump’s newly appointed henchmen have spent their entire lives crafting, you’re kidding yourself. You have days.

Think of the appointment of Steve Bannon to the top of Trump’s transition team as an ominous trial balloon (or Zeppelin if you prefer).

If Bannon gets to keep his post in the face of steely opposition, other extremist appointments will follow in rapid succession. It’s the autocratic playbook.

But as the Trump transition campaign flounders and flails, it’s giving its critics ample time to reflect on the sheer scale and ambition of Bannon’s recent Breitbart enterprise.

In the US the website, a favored gathering place for the alt-right, was Trump’s most impassioned cheerleader.

“I come from a blue-collar, Irish Catholic, pro-Kennedy, pro-union family of Democrats,” says Bannon, by way of explaining his politics. “I wasn’t political until I got into the service and saw how badly Jimmy Carter f---ed things up. I became a huge Reagan admirer. Still am. But what turned me against the whole establishment was coming back from running companies in Asia in 2008 and seeing that Bush had f---ed up as badly as Carter. The whole country was a disaster.”

Breitbart UK was also a guiding force behind the build up to Brexit. (The United Kingdom Independence Party’s – UKIP's – Nigel Farage later came on board the Trump campaign to share the lessons of his stewardship).

And this week Marion Marechal-Le Pen announced that she has been hired by Bannon as part of Breitbart’s forthcoming expansion into France and Germany.

Marion is the granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s neo-Nazi National Front Party, and the niece of Marine Le Pen, who could win France’s presidency next year (her odds have improved considerably after Brexit and the election of Donald Trump).

So Breitbart's reach and influence threaten to redraw the entire political map of the west, and indeed it is already doing so, forging alliances with the most far-right extremists in Europe as it goes.

“Outside of Fox News and the Drudge Report, we’re the third-largest conservative news site and, quite frankly, we have a bigger global reach than even Fox,” Bannon said at a conference held at the Vatican in the summer of 2014. “And that’s why we’re expanding so much internationally.”

“Look, we believe – strongly – that there is a global tea party movement. We’ve seen that. We were the first group to get in and start reporting on things like UKIP and Front National and other center right. With all the baggage that those groups bring – and trust me, a lot of them bring a lot of baggage, both ethnically and racially – but we think that will all be worked through with time.”

The timing is certainly fortuitous. After the US-led wars that have further destabilized the powder keg of the Middle East, a refugee crisis is flooding Europe and destabilizing its neoliberal governments.

Terrorist attacks have followed the way sun follows rain and the frightened citizens have started calling for crackdowns and strong leaders.

This is music to the ears of the autocratic. It’s the sort of chessboard moment that would look familiar to Vladimir Putin, and a moment that Ronald Reagan would have instinctively recoiled at.

For many observers, Bannon is much too closely associated with alt-right groups that white nationalists have embraced. If we are lucky, that fact will shortly stem his Trump administration ambitions.

But we have not been lucky in 2016.

There’s been a lot of talk about the alt-right, white nationalists, and “controversial” political pundits lately. All the new fangled terminology confuses many people. Ronald Reagan and your American grandfather had a much shorter word for them: Nazi’s.

What you have to do is fight them, everywhere they appear. Now.

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2016-11-17T08:00:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/the-people-of-doonbeg-are-very-happy-to-embrace-president-trumpThe people of Doonbeg are very happy to embrace President Trump (VIDEO)2016-11-17T21:24:42-05:00
Just over one week has passed since the election, and Donald Trump is shaping up as perhaps the most controversial President-elect in the history of the United States. Protests have swept major cities across the US, the media is describing Trump’s transition process as a mess (though Trump claims otherwise via Twitter), and while party leaders are calling for patience and open minds, there are still those, both Democrats and Republicans, who are bracing for the worst from a Trump presidency or protesting outright the steps he’s taken thus far.

Immediately following the election, RTE’s Colm Flynn went to Doonbeg to gauge the local reaction, and was met with cheers when he referred to the place as “Trump town.”

When asked about some of the criticisms lodged against Trump, such as his misogyny, a local council man said, “I would look at that like playing a match. He had a bad first half, he came back had a great second half, scored a goal, got the presidency.”

Pope Francis’ strong criticisms of Trump seem to have had no effect on local priest Fr. Haugh, who fondly recalled meeting Trump when he came to Doonbeg two years ago and being asked by the President-elect if he could help get Trump into heaven.

Prior to the election Fr. Haugh had also expressed appreciation for Trump’s pro-life stance on abortion.

“He’s pro-life. He’s not for death which is very important. He has good values,” he said in an interview with the Irish Mirror.

He also defended Trump against those who said his remarks about women and minorities were unforgivable.

“There is a difference between words and action. People say things, but it’s different putting words into actions. Deep down his values are pretty good.”

There’s already talk in Doonbeg of a big party for Trump’s inauguration in January.

Would you visit Doonbeg because of the Trump connection? Share your thoughts in the comment section.

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2016-11-17T08:00:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/posh-dublin-hotel-cancels-launch-meeting-for-irish-national-partyPosh Dublin hotel cancels launch meeting for Irish National Party2016-11-16T14:43:57-05:00Dublin’s Merrion Hotel today canceled the launch of a new Irish extreme right-wing party that was due to take place in the five-star hotel tomorrow afternoon.

The National Party circulated a press release to Irish media earlier this week inviting them to attend an “information meeting” at 3pm Thursday in the southside hotel, so as to inform the general public of their “purpose and aims.”

Among these aims, the press release outlined an anti-immigration and anti-abortion agenda, as well as an ambition to achieve a United Ireland.

A spokesperson from the Merrion Hotel, located opposite government buildings, today confirmed the cancellation of the launch, although citing no reason for this decision. It is believed the hotel was contacted by concerned members of the public who were unhappy with its role in hosting the meeting. It is not known if hotel staff were aware of the nature of the launch before hand.

Leader James Barrett, formerly of action groups Youth Defence and the Mother and Child Campaign, was due to speak at the now postponed launch, along with James Reynolds, a former chairman of the Irish Farmers Association in Longford and current national treasurer of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association (ICSA).

Describing themselves as a party that will “speak for the silent majority who have seen the beginnings of ‘multiculturalism’ with growing dismay,” the National Party registered with the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) as a Third Party on August 9, 2016.

Under Irish law, a third party refers to any individual or group who accepts a donation exceeding €100 in value in any calendar year, registered candidates and political parties excluded.

Within the brief description of their policies, the party criticized Ireland’s involvement within the EU, which it claimed has caused “an unrestricted policy of immigration to the point of population displacement” and had harsh words for the Repeal the 8th, pro-choice movement in Ireland, describing “the bloodlust of extremist groups to remove the equal right to life of the unborn child,” a right they maintain to protect.

Referring to the prospect of a united Ireland, the group stated they wish to “remind the political elites and the general commentariat . . . of the extent to which the promise presented by the Proclamation of the Republic remains unfulfilled”.

Speaking to the Irish Times, Barrett said he believed the cancellation was made because of the number of calls received by those who opposed the meeting while accusing those who contacted the hotel of being “extremists”

Shane O’Curry of the European Network Against Racism Ireland welcomed the decision, however, describing the uproar since the press release first began to appear on social media yesterday as “a very effective and positive non-violent protest by ordinary people which happened very spontaneously to stop the promotion of hatred in Ireland.”

“This new formation, the National Party, has all the hallmarks of a fascist party. Wherever fascism rears its ugly head, there’s violence, unfortunately,” he continued.

if @MerrionHotel insist on hosting the launch of the national party, we should insist on taking up space protesting on their footpath

In keeping with growing trends across Europe, this is not the first extreme right-wing to attempt to establish themselves in Ireland in the past few years.

A similar right-wing anti-immigration group, Identity Ireland, was founded by Peter OLoughlin in 2015 and as of last week, November 11, is registered as an official Irish political party. O’Loughlin previously ran as an independent candidate in the Irish general election in February of this year but was disqualified after the second count. He also attempted to attend the launch of an Irish arm of the German anti-Islam group Pegida in Dublin in 2015 but was injured in clashes with protesters.

President Obama yesterday warned against the rise of a “crude sort of nationalism” while speaking in Greece yesterday as part of his last international visit as President of the United States. Referring the differences in his own world view and the apparent worldview of President-elect Donald Trump, Obama urged that we forego a growing sense of “tribalism” that is taking root in populist movements throughout the world, a tribalism that pushes an agenda “built around an 'us' and a 'them'.”

The Irish Times reports that an alternative date and venue will now be pursued so the launch can go ahead.

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2016-11-16T14:00:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/why-congressman-joe-kennedy-should-run-for-president-in-2020Why Congressman Joe Kennedy should run for president in 20202016-11-18T11:28:21-05:00There is plenty of finger-pointing and blame going around after Hillary Clinton lost the Electoral College despite winning the popular vote by what could rise to three million votes when all the counting is done.

Suffice to say the combined weight of WikiLeaks, FBI Director James Comey and the Russian hackers, as well as an uninspired message, was enough to defeat her, and the result cannot be reversed despite all the protests.

Democrats need to focus on 2018 and 2020 as they attempt to stop the current runaway Republican train.

The contenders for 2020 mentioned so far do not inspire. Elizabeth Warren will be over 70 years of age at that time. Clinton’s vice presidential pick Tim Kaine is a decent man but hardly an exciting politician. New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand would certainly make for an interesting new face, but the misogyny evident in the electorate aimed at Clinton may give the Democrats pause.

Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, by virtue of family and his position, would certainly be a contender but may be just too New York to play nationally. Governor Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, First Friend of the Clintons, may fancy his chances, but the Clinton era looks over for good.

If, as I suspect, Donald Trump will be a one-termer, especially given his inability to deliver on many of his promises (bringing coal mining back, four percent annual growth rate, deporting 11 million undocumented, banning Muslims – to name just a few) then the Democrats need some fresh faces.

There will be some business titans who will contemplate getting into the race given Trump’s success, but there is no one obvious other than Mike Bloomberg, who will be touching 80 years of age when the next election comes.

To my mind, a name that should be in the mix is the Democratic Congressman from Massachusetts, Joe Kennedy III.

Given that Trump has changed all the rules about experience and qualifications, three terms in Congress sounds like enough for young Joe, 36, a charismatic politician if ever there was one.

In both heritage and political ability he matches up with another leader with a famous relative, the wildly popular Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, son of former leader Pierre Trudeau

In the old days he would have waited until one of the two older Massachusetts senators, Ed Markey and Warren, stepped aside, and spent at least one term in the United States Senate, but given Trump’s short circuit of the entire process from zero to hero in all of 18 months, perhaps Kennedy should reconsider.

I have only met him on a few occasions, but he is very impressive, unlike many of the other generation of Kennedy politicians who followed President John F. Kennedy but never left their mark.

But genius, as Brendan Behan once remarked, does not come in litters, and it is unfair to expect the younger generation to pick up the fallen standard and be as successful.

Until Joe Kennedy III came along.

He is the perfect persona for the reality television/real life generation. He has been an outstanding member of the House and has been re-elected by huge margins.

In addition, he is telegenic and would be 40 years old at the time of the next election, just a few years younger than what Robert and John, his grandfather and grand-uncle, were. He speaks fluent Spanish so would start off with a strong advantage with Hispanics.

In 1968, writer Pete Hamill wrote an anguished letter to Robert F. Kennedy urging him to run for president, noting that poor people in the Watts area of Los Angeles hung pictures of JFK in their homes and that Robert had the "obligation of staying true to whatever it was that put those pictures on those walls."

After four years of Trump and threats of division fostered by blatant racism, it will surely be time for a healer in the White House and maybe for a Kennedy moment. Given his pedigree and performance to date, Joe Kennedy just might be that guy.

I know you might say unlikely, but look at who is our president-elect. What odds would you have got on Trump succeeding four years ago?

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2016-11-16T08:00:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/others/what-will-president-trump-do-with-america-s-11-million-undocumented-immigrantsWhat will President Trump do with America’s 11 million undocumented immigrants?2016-11-15T14:58:18-05:00The day after the election I got into a taxi and the driver immediately wanted to talk.

“Big night, last night,” he volunteered.

“Yep,” I replied as we waited for the light to change,

“I wonder what will happen?” he mused. I knew what he was talking about, but said nothing. The light was taking its time. “I wonder what will happen to him?” He pointed out the right-hand window to a man selling flowers by the train station. “He’s illegal.” The light changed and I headed for home.

So now, it all comes down to this. A middle-aged illegal immigrant Hispanic man trying to make it in America by selling rush-hour flowers at the train station.

The world is watching that man—and how America will handle him. Will President Trump’s words about rounding up illegal immigrants have any teeth in them or will he just forget all about it as politicians have been known to do?

Already the ugliness has begun. There are reports of a student handing out “deportation” letters to minority classmates in California; a Massachusetts postal worker shouted “This is Trump Land” at a Hispanic man; and a Muslim student was told to remove her hijab on a Queens, NY bus. It seems like that in a few short days America has gone from the home of the brave to the land of the bigoted paranoid.

On January 21, 2017, will the round-up begin? Will illegal aliens be arrested and put into trucks and driven away? Will they be “resettled” like the Japanese-Americans of World War II, as they await deportation? Will the government ask regular citizens for help in rounding them up? Will America turn into some hideous carbon copy of Vichy France as we substitute “illegal immigrant” for “Jew”? Will the new American greeting be: “Papers, please”?

During the salacious campaign, Trump described the United States of America as a hideous place overrun by illegal immigrants and terrorists waiting to strike. Our economy was on the verge of collapse and our inner-cities were nothing short of hell holes.

Apparently, much of the American electorate agreed with him.

Of course, outside the United States, America is viewed as the Shining Light on the Hill. The quintessential democracy that all other democracies are modeled on.

And unless you are speaking Navajo or Cherokee or Cree or some other Native American language, you are either an immigrant or the descendant of an immigrant. Every American came from somewhere else, either legally or illegally.

I think this is why the question of immigration is such an important topic to the Irish. Immigration to America—either legally or illegally—has touched every Irish family since the time of the Famine.

Round-Up the Usual Illegal Suspects…or Maybe Not

I am an immigrant, my parents were immigrants, my brother and sisters are immigrants. All my aunts and uncles were immigrants. I assume that every one of them was legal, but they came in tough times—in times of revolution and Depression—so I really don’t know.

My Uncle Frank Kavanagh went from being an IRA gunman on-the-run in 1920 Dublin to being a New Yorker by 1921. I have always thought that maybe his first glimpse of the Port of New York was peeking out of the hold of a ship where he was a stowaway. Whatever his immigrant status, Uncle Frank did okay for himself and America, serving in the United States Merchant Marine during World War II and spending three years in a Japanese POW camp when his ship was torpedoed. Ironically, he was liberated by the British, whom he hated.

Since immigration is such a hot topic I decided to ask several prominent Irish-Americans what they think Trump will do with the lightning rod he rode down an escalator and straight into the White House: What will President Trump do with 11 million illegal immigrants?

Timothy Egan is the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times and author of the bestselling "The Immortal Irishman," his biography of Irish revolutionary and American Civil War general, Thomas Francis Meagher. The paternal side of Egan’s family found shelter in America during the famine and the maternal side arrived in the 1870s.

He doesn’t put much faith in Trump’s threats against illegal immigrants. “I think it’s a ruse,” he told me. “I don’t think he’ll put a police state in place and start rounding up 11-million people. It’s a logistical impossibility, and most people would be appalled at the presence of a police state in their neighborhoods. But he will start deportation and harassment of some immigrants. Much of this will be for the cameras.”

Malachy McCourt—author of the bestselling "A Monk Swimming," actor, and multi-tasking gadfly—was born in Brooklyn, like his brother Frank, but grew up in Limerick City. His mother, the eponymous Angela of literary fame, and brothers Mike and Alphie, were immigrants, following the two American-born brothers back to New York.

He too, doesn’t take Trump’s words seriously. “He will avoid the problem completely for his term,” he says bluntly. “He will babble about it, but no action.”

Pete Hamill’s mother and father found refuge in Brooklyn after fleeing an anti-Catholic pogrom in Belfast in the 1920s. Hamill has written many books including his memoir, "A Drinking Life," and the novels "Snow in August" and "Forever."

When asked how it would turn out if Trump decided to do a general round-up Hamill replied: “Badly. Rounding up almost twice the number of those who died in the Shoah, including the millions of American children of illegals. Not all of the adults are from Mexico, although they might have come through Mexico from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, etc. The Wall would cost millions, but why should Mexico pay for it? Will the U.S. shoot its way across the border into Mexico, effectively declaring war? Trump, with his four deferments during Vietnam, probably knows about war from movies. Certainly, not experience. Would he use the hydrogen bomb on Mexico City? Would he opt for carpet bombing on Acapulco, Cancun, or the border cities? Maybe...”

Peter Quinn’s family started arriving in the United States during the Famine. His family lived in St. Brigid’s Parish—“The Famine Church”—in what is now known as the East Village. His father went on to become a United States Congressman representing the Bronx. The son followed in his father’s political footsteps, acting as a speechwriter for New York governors Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo. He has written five books including "Banished Children of Eve," the best book ever written about the Irish in the New York Civil War riots of 1863.

The New Dealer in Quinn’s DNA forces him to cast a wary eye on Trump and what he has promised his supporters: “No president has ever deported more illegal immigrants than Barack Obama,” he says.

“Trump will go after illegals with criminal records, but it’s a logistical impossibility to deport 11-million people. He’s got to look tough to his supporters. How that carries out in actual fact remains to be seen. And what about that ‘great big beautiful wall that Mexico is going to pay for’? (It’s going to cost an estimated $38 billion.) I can’t wait to see how he finesses that one. Whatever he does, Trump’s rhetoric puts him firmly within the Know-Nothing anti-immigrant movement that has waxed and waned through our history. I’ve no doubt that were he alive in the 1840s he would have been outspoken in his opposition to admitting impoverished, illiterate famine-era immigrants like my great-grandparents.”

Terry Golway’s Irish roots are hard to pin down. He is unsure how or when the Golways got to Staten Island, but his maternal side traces its Irish roots to the early 20th century. His grandfather Charlie Kerrigan, from Bundoran, County Donegal, served his new country in the legendary Fighting 69th Regiment. Golway, a senior editor at PoliticoNewYork, is the author of the definitive biography of the great American Fenian John Devoy, "Irish Rebel," as well as a history of New York’s Tammany Hall, "Machine Made."

Like the others he is not overwhelmed by Trump’s logic on illegals. “Trump’s rhetoric about deporting 11-million illegals reminds me of the phrase Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to describe Bill Clinton’s promises to reform welfare. He called it ‘boob bait for Bubba.’ This is pretty much the same thing—pandering to the worst instincts of blue-collar America simply for political gain.”

A Nation of Snitches?

President John F. Kennedy, a grandchild of Irish immigrants, once wrote a book called "A Nation of Immigrants." One wonders what would happen if President Trump—a man known for his uninhibited and outrageous behavior—asked Americans to help him round up illegals. Would America go from being a nation of immigrants to a nation of snitches? The first reaction would be “it can’t happen here!” But it can happen anywhere. There is nothing worse than a nation in fear, especially when they believe the big lie.

“Yes,” says Peter Quinn, “it can happen here, especially if there’s a mass terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11. The president-elect has already vowed to reinstate torture as a means of interrogation. Anything is possible. But I think—hope—it’s unlikely. If they’re true to their principles, conservatives would be as opposed as liberals.”

“The ‘Papers, please’ law was tried in Arizona, and most of it was thrown out by the courts,” Tim Egan reminds us. “We have to count on the durable strength of the Constitution to save us here.”

“No, we will not become a police state” declares Malachy McCourt. “Civil liberties are entrenched in our bones and will not be denied.”

Pete Hamill takes a more sinister view: “Yes, if you are too brown, black, or are heard playing Agustin Lara music or Luis Miguel too loud in your house. If you root for Latinos in ballgames or movie houses. If your name ends in a vowel.”

Bottom Line Commerce—Who Will Pick Our Lettuce?

Hollywood song-and-dance man George Murphy went on to become a Republican United States Senator from California. He is most famous for saying—although the quote is often erroneously attributed to Ronald Reagan—that Mexicans make wonderful farm workers because they were “built close to the ground.” One wonders what Murphy’s ditch-digging Irish ancestors might think about that quote.

But this highlights another dilemma with America’s illegals. They are often blamed for taking from society without giving, but that’s simply not true. Taxes are deducted from their salaries. They pay taxes on goods purchased, they pay Social Security taxes without ever getting Social Security, and they do something that tough-talking Americans simply refuse to do—they work the fields, in some cases, for pennies. And America without illegals in the fields could be facing a massive economic downturn which would be felt very quickly at the supermarket. Think about how much the supermarket inflation would be if produce were to rot in the fields for lack of illegals to pick them.

“Remember,” Golway sagaciously reminds us, “the business base of the Republican Party—the free traders, the readers of the Wall Street Journal—are pro-immigration, not because they are humanitarians, but because they know it drives down the price of labor. No policy that is based on deportation will succeed. And no attempt to achieve rational immigration policy will succeed unless Trump can figure out how to penalize businesses that rely on (and exploit) undocumented workers. Liberals did not create the market for illegal immigration. Business owners, pride of our nation, did.”

“Thousands of restaurants will be shut for lack of human kitchen help,” opines Hamill. “Fat white guy Trump voters are unlikely to turn into pickers of fruit. Trump himself would not make a pimple on the ass of a hard-working Mexican.”

States like Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama have tried to threaten illegals with undocumented immigrant laws. Alabama passed HB 56 in 2011. It was an unmitigated disaster. One of the provisions of the law allowed law enforcement to arrest undocumented aliens when they were pulled over for a motor vehicle infractions. Two of the first to be picked up were a German executive with Mercedes-Benz and a Japanese Honda worker. Needless to say, the state had embarrassed two of its biggest employers. Because of HB 56 Hispanics stopped sending their children to school. They stopped talking to the authorities, making policing that much more difficult. And, in an effort to get some kind of ID, they turned the DMV into a living hell. It took only seven months for the Alabama state legislature to pass a fresh round of revisions. The state also ended up paying $350,000 to cover opponents’ legal fees.

I wonder if Donald Trump ever heard of HB 56?

Could President Trump Bring About Immigration Reform?

Although the GOP won an electoral victory on November 8th, for the fourth time in five presidential elections they lost the popular vote. There are dire warning signs on the horizon for the GOP. It can be put very simply—the day of the powerful Hispanic voter is near.

You don’t think so? Just look at the state of Nevada. In the time of Reagan, it was the reddest of the red states. On election day, they voted in the first female Latina senator, Catherine Cortez Masto, and three of their four congressional districts are now Democratic. One state over in Arizona, look at Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the bane of Hispanics—legal and illegal. The sheriff is currently unemployed, voted out by the people he has been terrorizing for the last 23 years. The handwriting is on the wall. The New York Times reports that “Latinos are poised to become a majority in Arizona by 2030.”

With all of Trump’s boasts and threats one possibility could happen that no one even thought possible—immigration reform. This might be the perfect time for the GOP to get this monkey off their backs—if their base will allow.

Is a new comprehensive immigration policy possible during the administration of the anti-immigrant president?

“The good news, in my view, is that Trump has no core beliefs,” said Peter Quinn. “He was for gay marriage, then against it, pro-choice now pro-life, for the Iraq war then against, etc. But he’s not a fool. Given his planetary-sized ego, he must want to succeed as president. He lost the popular vote. He has to make some attempt to deal with the strong opposition he faces. His experience brokering real estate schemes and avoiding bankruptcy must have instilled certain bargaining skills. If he has a philosophy it pretty much boils down to ‘Let’s make a deal.’ If not consensus, maybe he can help reach a compromise that has the support of a workable majority.”

“There will be a consensus,” thinks McCourt. “No one will be satisfied, but it will shut everyone one up for the duration.”

“It could start a dialogue—by forcing the issue,” hopes Tim Egan. “And then there’d be a real gut check—what are we really about?”

Wouldn’t it be the ultimate irony that under the anti-immigrant president we got immigration reform? Stay tuned.

What’s Trump’s Immigration Endgame?

The big question is: Does Trump have a plan?

Most likely he does not, because that’s his modus operandi. He tends to make things up as he goes along. It may work for a home chef, but it will not work for a politician in this Washington climate. He thinks he will go to Washington and wave his gold-plated magic wand and 11-million undocumented aliens will disappear. It ain’t going to happen. Even if laws are passed, it will eventually come down to the people and how they view these laws—how they either support, ignore or break them. [For historical context check out the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, commonly known as Prohibition. Also, check out the 21st Amendment to the Constitution which repealed Prohibition. Lesson? Bad and unenforceable laws don’t work and are not supported by citizens.] The people, ultimately, will be the final arbitrator.

“Even brilliant humans are powerless when faced with bureaucracy,” says Malachy McCourt. “And though Trump has rodent cunning, but he is oddly stupid so as a one term acting president he may learn that he can’t win this one. It is my hope that Irish Americans will learn that the oppressor has always been of conservative power. Yes, the poet said you eventually become the thing you hate the most and many Irish do, becoming traitorous conservatives. But you must look inside yourself and decide whether to become a conservative traitor to your heritage or remain loyal to the nobility of our great liberty-loving Irishness.”

“Politically,” declares Peter Quinn, “I’m opposed to just about everything President-elect Trump stands for and supports. But he didn’t create the fear and anxiety that’s brought him to power. He’s exposed it. It’s up to the Democrats to figure out how to deal with it. So far, the only one who’s come close is Bernie Sanders. I’m impressed by the way President Obama is handling the transition, with his usual graciousness and intelligence. Instead of doing what Mitch McConnell & Co. did to him—vowing on Day One to oppose anything he proposed—Obama is asking that Trump be given a hearing. Fair enough. Given Trump’s utter lack of a governing philosophy, I feel he might find it far easier to sit down with Democratic deal makers like Chuck Schumer than right-wing ideologues like Ted Cruz. I’m not looking forward to a Trump presidency. I’m fearful about what’s ahead, not just on immigration, but on the life-or-death challenge of global warming. But history moves in swerves and turns, not straight lines. Hope springs eternal.”

Perhaps there is some kind of amazing human grace to be found in this whole conundrum. “More than anything else,” says Pete Hamill, “we have to retain our toughness, our sense of irony, our laughter. We have to honor our immigrants, thank them for all the gifts they have brought to us. Food. Music. Labor. We have to guide their children into colleges. We have to offer their old folks a seat on the #2 train, and make sure none of their infants are crying from hunger.”

Common human decency may be the answer in this most disturbing and un-American time in our history. I’ll think of America’s innate decency the next time I see this illegal immigrant selling flowers at the train station—trying, just as our Irish ancestors did so long ago, to make it in America for him and his family. What could be more courageous?

What could be more American?

*Dermot McEvoy is the author of the "The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising" and "Our Lady of Greenwich Village," now available in paperback from Skyhorse Publishing. He may be reached at dermotmcevoy50@gmail.com. Follow him at www.dermotmcevoy.com. Follow The 13th Apostle on Facebook at www.facebook.com/13thApostleMcEvoy.

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2016-11-15T05:45:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/others/dubliners-definitely-disagree-on-the-outcome-of-the-us-election-photosDubliners definitely disagree on the outcome of the US election (PHOTOS)2016-11-16T08:29:07-05:00
I took to the Dublin City streets to discuss Trump’s victory in the election, and what it means for the future of America and Ireland alike.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in the US Presidential Election, thoughts, comments and solutions have been loudly circulating all over the world. I spoke with Dublin City locals about their views on a Trump presidency, and what they think it poses for the future of America and Ireland.

Each of the eleven Dubliners I spoke to had truly interesting and complex thoughts to share. Despite the upset or surprise of many, they spoke logically and rationally about Trump’s win, and offered solutions on how the world can grow in the circumstances.

They additionally discussed with me the fate of the undocumented Irish in the US, Ireland’s economy, Ireland’s link with America, and perhaps most important, the fate of democracy in general. I spoke to a fervent Irish Trump supporter as well, who was pleasantly surprised by the outcome, and said he looks forward to what the future president might have to offer.

Katherine Donnelly, a History student at Trinity College Dublin, had some concerns specifically for the Irish economy: “You see a lot of parallels between now and the 1930s and I think that’s kind of scary, for our own future especially, being Irish. The Irish have major concerns about our economy’s future now. I think Trump wants to bring everything back to America, and what I would fear is that a lot of American companies here, like pharmaceutical companies, would have an incentive to leave. We don’t have great industry ourselves, and that would be taken away from us.

“I think we all kind of did see it coming, but didn’t want to admit it. There were major flaws in Hillary’s campaign; she didn’t offer anything that gave hope to people.” Katherine said that she most likely would not move to the US following the election outcome, as the country seems to her to be much more divided and less open-minded than she’d thought.

Colm Summers, a recent graduate based in Waterford and Washington D.C., spoke to IrishCentral about the shifting position of world politics, and the growing divide between the right and left wing, which he believes can pose a serious global threat. But he went from feeling hopeless to encouraged:

“I think it shows the failure of the left wing to activate in the same way that the far right has,” he said. “It’s easy to be accused of being a barking mad lefty when people are throwing words around like Fascism, but actually the threat of a sort of proto-Fascist United States has never been so clear.

"All it would take, given that we just had – Brexit, and then elected Trump, and Putinism in the east – would be for one other state in Europe to deflect from the European Union, the annexation of one more Eastern European country by Russia, or a similar crisis like Syria, for us to be on the brink of a real global crisis.”

When I asked Colm about his thoughts on people potentially moving out of the US as a result, he gave some words of encouragement, reminding us about the importance of democracy: “There have been more applications for Canadian passports in the last three to four days than ever before. But I would hope people would not [move out].

“I would hope we would have the courage of our convictions, and remember that a democracy is worth more than the outcome of this one election, and that we need to stick to our guns, and try to make things right in the United States.”

Dubliner Gary M. told IrishCentral that he couldn’t have predicted a Trump win because of the number of people he alienated in his campaign; he believes that even Trump himself didn’t suspect that he would win, and as a result, he’ll be unprepared:

“I don’t think that he ever thought that we would be elected, and now he’s kind of shocked that he is elected, and he doesn’t have any sort of plan in place. In one of the first interviews he gave afterwards, he was nearly rolling back on all the commitments he’d made to his supporters throughout his campaign. Even when he didn’t seem to care for Barack Obama, he is now heavily relying on Obama for counseling. He’s never been in politics before. Albeit he’s a businessman, which does bring something to the table, but he doesn’t have any history or experience in politics. I think he’ll struggle.

“If you went through the demographics before he was elected, it’s hard to understand how he could’ve won at all. He alienated a lot of the women, people of color, and immigrants. Well, he did win, and now he has a job to do for the next four years. But it seems to me that he doesn’t really understand the job that he has to do.”

One Dubliner, Peter M., told IrishCentral that he was pleasantly surprised by Trump’s victory, and thinks America will be in good hands:

“I was pleasantly surprised. All the polls had Hillary 3 or 4 points ahead, and Trump confounded the polls, and indeed he confounded the exit polls. So it just shows how much prejudice there was against him, or so it seemed.

“I like his style, his direct way of explaining things. And I like his attack on political correctness. If he follows through on his policies, it can only be a good thing.”

When I spoke with Peter about the undocumented Irish, he said: “There’s no reason why any country might be expected to have undocumented people residing in it. I’d rather hope that many of these [undocumented Irish] could be documented in due course. I think Trump said himself that he’d make a determination on that once he secures the borders.

“And certainly I wouldn’t like a few million people living in my country undocumented, not knowing who they are or where they come from, so, it makes sense.”

Many of the people I spoke to referred to the shifting position on the world toward conservatism as of late, and have fears concerning a civil rights setback. One such person is Peter Doyle, an Irish Studies student from Dublin, who had some choice words to say about the Electoral College. However, he seems optimistic, feeling that a Trump presidency won’t be as scary as people might think:

“It’s highly surprising, although I suppose what we’ve learned now is that we can’t trust the polls. They got that wrong with Brexit as well. It’s indicative of the general move away from central politics toward extremes, and toward the right wing. We’re seeing it in Europe as well. And the Electoral College is a stupid system.

“It won’t be as catastrophic as some people seem to be making it up. I highly doubt we’re going to be looking at nuclear war or anything like that.”

He also spoke about the future of the Supreme Court: “I’d say the main thing would be Trump’s legacy on the Supreme Court, especially if some of the justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and some of the older justices die, it means it could be a heavy switch to conservative. Things like Roe v. Wade could be repealed, and we could see a serious step back in civil rights.”

Ciara Molloy, a Political Science and History student from Co. Offaly, told IrishCentral that though she was jarred by Trump’s win she doesn’t believe people in the US should be protesting it:

“I’m just getting so annoyed by the protests going on all over the US at the moment. It’s the attitude that you’ve made your bed and now you have to lie in it. He was voted in democratically at the end of the day. They’re saying he’s going to usurp democracy, yet people on the streets are not really accepting that this was a democratic process.”

However, Ciara feels optimistic about Trump’s maintenance of the US-Ireland relationship: “One of this first moves was that he got in touch with Enda Kenny about Saint Patrick’s Day. It is kind of comforting: I think there’s always going to be that close Irish-American link no matter who the president is, so it’s kind of a relief in one way.”

Her classmate Emma Clarke from Co. Kerry believes that people were unenthused by the prospect of another Democratic President, but also now that we’ve seen this extreme outcome, people should feel inspired to stand up and make a change:

“I didn’t really see it coming, but after Brexit I kind of wondered, because there seems to be a trend. I think Trump being voted in was a protest against the establishment. People thought that with voting for Hillary, it would be another four years of the same carry-on. It was the same with Brexit. It’s basically saying the system we have now is not working we need a change.

“I think it also highlights the flaws in the Electoral College system. I don’t think it’s a democracy when you have literally more people in the country voting for a candidate who doesn’t win. I think there is a need for a change there.

“Maybe I’m being too optimistic here, but I think people will realize now that Trump has been voted in that we need to do something. The Democratic Party will say we have to do something. We have to offer something new, because what we had to offer before was not working. So we’re going to have to go back to the drawing board and rethink everything.”

It’s clear that Dubliners are quite thoughtful and have been passionately discussing the election around the city. What do you think about their comments?

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2016-11-15T05:33:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/culture/craic/paddy-power-owes-trump-betters-5-million-after-paying-out-early-on-clinton-winPaddy Power owes Trump betters $5 million, paid out early on Clinton win2016-11-15T05:22:04-05:00
Irish bookmaker Paddy Power is regretting its decision to pay out early to customers who had bet on a Hillary Clinton win in the U.S. presidential election.

CNBC reports that in October, Paddy Power paid out £800,000 ($992,528) in bets place on Clinton after a series of negative news stories threatened to derail Donald Trump's campaign.

As Trump’s poll numbers continued to collapse, the bookmaker referred to Clinton as a “nailed-on certainty to occupy the Oval Office.”

“Should Trump upset the odds and become 45th President,” Paddy Power announced at the time, “it will trigger the biggest political payout in bookmaking history and leave Paddy Power with some very expensive pie on its face.”

The bookmaker said that it had been hit for more than £4 million ($4.96 million) by those who'd backed Donald Trump to win.

"We're in the business of making predictions and decided to put our neck on the line by paying out early on Hillary Clinton, but boy did we get it wrong," Paddy Power spokesperson Lewis Davey said in a statement Wednesday.

"We've been well and truly thumped by Trump, with his victory leaving us with the biggest political pay-out in the company's history and some very, very expensive egg on our faces," he added.

Undeterred by the loss, Paddy Power has already began to take bets on a host of "Trump specials,” pricing him at 4/1 to be re-elected come 2020, 20/1 to build a wall spanning "the entirety" of the U.S.-Mexican border, and evens to make Russia his first international visit.

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2016-11-15T05:03:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/historic-irish-american-moments-told-through-pathe-newsreels-videosHistoric Irish American moments told through Pathé newsreels (VIDEOS)2016-11-18T20:55:21-05:00British Pathé posted 90,000 historic films on YouTube in 2014, giving a rare glimpse into news of the day. Among these priceless glimpse into the past are clips illustrating the long and treasured relationship between the Irish and the United States.

“The group of people walk along a row of houses which have been partly demolished. M/S as they emerge from a smoke damaged building with all the windows out. M/S of the group talking to each other. M/S as they look at some machinery. M/S as they pose and chat, C/U of two of them. “

Ireland's President in America (1928)

"Ireland's President in America - President Cosgrave... well guarded on all sides... has cordial reception on arrival in New York."

“…Several shots show President William Thomas Cosgrave of Ireland (Irish Free State / Eire / Southern Ireland) on a boat with bodyguards and dignitaries, presumably approaching New York. On arrival at New York Cosgrave is seen getting into an open-top car and walking down some steps to pose for the camera, surrounded by military men and bodyguards. M/S as he shakes hands with another man, probably an American dignitary (?). Cosgrave rides through the streets in the open car as photographers takes photos; a policeman walks beside the car.”

Ireland Defeats America in the International Hurling Match at Croke Park (1932)

“The American and Irish hurling teams walk out on the pitch at Croke Park. The Americans are wearing light shirts, the Irish dark.

“Good footage of this fast moving Gaelic sport.”

Dublin - Celebrities Visit to Eire (1938)

“Joseph P. Kennedy, American Ambassador to Britain, and American tennis player Helen Wills-Moody in Dublin. (Eire, Southern Ireland, Republic of Ireland).

American Troops in Northern Ireland (1942)

“Various good shots of American troops arriving at a dock in Northern Ireland and struggling off with their cumbersome kit bags. Commentator notes it is only seven weeks since the United States of America declared war on Germany. One soldier drops his kit bag. Below decks we see allied officers including Lieutenant Royle (RNR), Lieutenant Colonel Stewart (US army), Captain Lee (British Army) and Lieutenant Stanford Smith discussing plans.

"American army nurses are seen disembarking - 'many wearing slacks for comfort.' American troops on a launch heading for dock wave to those on their troop ship. The soldiers march off along wet roads - typical January day in Great Britain - and are given food from a canteen van. Great C/U of an American soldier biting into a pork pie (and probably wondering what it is).”

Eleanor Roosevelt's Tour of Northern Ireland (1942)

“Various shots of Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, visiting a hospital in Northern Ireland. She is seen talking to patients in a very friendly manner. Nurses wave as she leaves."

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2016-11-15T00:00:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/50-000-irish-undocumented-urged-not-to-panic-about-donald-trump50,000 Irish undocumented urged not to panic about Donald Trump2016-11-14T23:18:25-05:00President-elect Donald J Trump told CBS’ 60 Minutes he plans to deport two to three million undocumented immigrants. Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform says 50,000 Irish undocumented should not panic or react rashly.

When questioned about his planned policy the President-elect said “What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, we have a lot of these people, probably two million, it could be even three million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate. But we’re getting them out of our country, they’re here illegally.”

In a statement Chairperson of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform Ciaran Staunton expressed concern at misleading media reports about the potential deportation of undocumented immigrants under the platform put forward by president-elect Donald Trump.

Staunton said “We must not scare and cause unnecessary concern in our community with false and sensationalized headlines, we all have responsibility to report the truth and provide our community with real updates on what is happening.”

"While we are all concerned with many of President-elect Trump's statements on immigration during his campaign, we urge people not make any rash decisions or live in fear of a knock on the door. We will keep a close eye on events as they progress in Washington" said Staunton.

The President-elect has used the figure of “two million” undocumented people with criminal records previously experts have poked holes in its accuracy.

According to the Department of Homeland Security and the Migration Policy Institute there are 1.9 million “removable criminal aliens” in the United States, this includes all non-citizens with a criminal conviction, both legal residents and undocumented. Of these about 820,000 are undocumented immigrants, the Washington Post reports.

During Donald Trump’s interview, aired on Sunday night, he was asked “What about the pledge to deport millions and millions of undocumented immigrants?”

Having addressed the issue of those undocumented peoples with criminal records Trump expanded on his plan for the other eight to nine million undocumented people which would remain. He told Lesley Stahl, “After the border is secured and after everything gets normalized, we’re going to make a determination on the people that you’re talking about who are terrific people, they’re terrific people but we are gonna make a determination at that-- But before we make that determination-- Lesley, it’s very important, we want to secure our border.

Throughout the Republican candidate’s campaign he promised to crackdown on illegal immigration, most famously planning to build a wall along the Mexican border.

Stahl also asked the President-elect about his first meeting with the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Paul Ryan. Trump said there were three things the government places to tackle right away, rather than focusing on immigration. He said “It was health care, there was immigration and there was a major tax bill lowering taxes in this country. We’re going to substantially simplify and lower the taxes.”

Stahl also referenced the fact that the Republican Party now dominates both the Senate and Congress. Trump said “I have both Houses and we have the presidency, so we can do things…It’s been a long time since it’s happened.”

On Sunday House Speaker Ryan spoke to CNN and seemed to contradict Trump’s plans for deportation. He said “We are not planning on erecting a deportation force. Donald Trump’s not planning on that. I think we should put people’s minds at ease: That is not what our focus is. That is not what we’re focused on. We’re focused on securing the border.”

“We think that’s first and foremost, before we get into any other immigration issue, we’ve got to know who’s coming and going into the country—we’ve got to secure the border.”

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2016-11-14T15:07:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/others/clinton-lost-white-house-because-of-catholic-vote-in-midwestThe one big reason Hillary Clinton lost the White House2016-12-02T09:37:23-05:00
The Clinton campaign’s hemorrhage of Catholic votes in the Midwest won Donald Trump the presidency, a leading Catholic analyst has declared.

George Marlin, a former candidate for New York City Mayor and historian of Catholic America, made the claim in The Catholic Thing publication after combing through data showing a dramatic drop in support for the Democratic candidate in Catholic parts of Rust Belt states that voted for President-elect Trump.

Exit polls show that, while in 2012 President Obama won 55 and 52% of the “generic” Catholic vote nationwide, this year American Catholics voted 52% for Donald Trump – making 2016 only the second time in a quarter of a century that Catholics have voted for the Republican presidential nominee.

Efforts to drive up the Clinton campaign’s number amongst blue collar workers were panned. The New York Timesreported that an invitation from Notre Dame University to Clinton to give the prestigious lecture at their new school of international studies was declined on the grounds that, “that white Catholics were not the audience she needed to spend time reaching out to.”

This decline was crucial in flipping the Midwest states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin from blue to red and handing Trump the keys to the White House.

Key to all this was Pennsylvania, with its 20 electoral vote. Approximately 18% of the Keystone State's people claim Irish ancestry and over a quarter of Pennsylvanians are Roman Catholic. In 2012 Obama received an average of 47% of the vote in the state’s top 20 most Catholic counties, helping him beat GOP nominee Mitt Romney by just over 300,000 votes statewide.

But in a trend seen across the Midwest, the Democrats failed miserably to inspire Catholic voters and the Clinton campaign won a paltry 42.5% of votes in the state’s 20 most Catholic counties, down nearly 5% on 2012.

Whilst the former Secretary of State’s numbers were steady in wealthy Delaware County – she won 59%, only one percent down on Obama in 2012 – her support fell through the floor in poorer parts of the state. In blue collar Cambria and Elk counties her support dropped by double digits, 11 and 15 points respectively compared to the previous election cycle.

Trump’s promises to renegotiate trade deals and halt the decline of manufacturing jobs clearly struck a chord with many traditional Democrats in the Midwest. This was obvious even before Tuesday’s shock result.

In Ohio – 14% of whose population is Irish American – Clinton’s numbers were similarly poor, underperforming Obama in all but one of the state’s 15 most Catholic counties. In the heavily unionized Mahoning County, support for the Democrats fell off a cliff, with only 49% voting for the former Secretary of State, against 63% who had chosen to re-elect Obama four years ago.

Trump’s surprise victory in Michigan by a nail-biting 11,837 votes flipped 16 usually Democratic electoral votes into his column and was similarly attributed to his appeal among the state’s Catholics. Clinton’s margins were down ten points or more on Obama’s 2012 victory in the state’s 20 most Catholic counties. In St. Clair County only 31% of voters backed Clinton, against 45% who voted for Obama. In Menominee County the decline was even worse, with a 15% drop in support for the Democratic candidate.

In heavily-Catholic Wisconsin – a state where 11% of residents claim Irish ancestry – Trump scored his most surprising win on the back of the blue collar Catholic vote. Clinton won more than 50% of the votes in only 5 of the state’s 31 most Catholic counties, a huge swing from the Obama years when the President won 24 and then 14 of those same counties. All of which contributed to Clinton losing the state and its 10 electoral votes by a razor thin margin of 27,389 votes. It was the first time the Badger State had voted for a Republican Presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan’s 49 state landslide in 1984.

Few predicted last week that the Catholic vote in Rust Belt states would be so decisive: the Clinton campaign had focused on turning out the Obama coalition of young people, the college-educated and minorities, convinced that this would deliver them victory like it had in the last two elections.

Had the campaign made a play for the white Catholic vote in the same way it targeted other groups it is conceivable that Clinton could still have won. If Clinton had won just 70,000 more votes in Pennsylvania, 13,000 in Michigan and 30,000 in Wisconsin all three states would have stayed blue and Hillary Rodham Clinton would be the 45th President-elect of the United States.

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2016-11-14T06:13:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/irish-and-irish-americans-respond-to-trump-s-victoryMany Irish in Ireland and in US fear Trump’s victory2016-11-15T03:58:25-05:00Donald Trump’s election has created widespread shock and alarm in Ireland and among the Irish living here in America this week.

Irish Labour Party Senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin delivered perhaps the most forceful assessment of all this week, however. On a video post on his Facebook page that is quickly going viral, Ó Ríordáin called Trump a fascist who must be resisted.

An estimated 50,000 Irish live in the US undocumented, Ó Ríordáin added, what will be their fate under the threatened anti-immigrant sweeps to come?

For Irish students, the J-1 Visa program is an undergraduate rite of passage that allows them to work for a summer in the US, but Trump said in 2015 he would scrap the program which benefitted “foreign youth.”

In New York film and theater actress Geraldine Hughes was stunned. “It is impossible to imagine but it is now a reality… that he is our President elect,” she told IrishCentral.

“I am an Irish born US Citizen and I am proud voter. Personally it is devastating to imagine what this means for my gay friends, my friends of color and of different races and creeds.

“I am a white woman with health insurance. I got lucky. Those who are scared and frightened today remind me of how I felt as an oppressed Catholics during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

“I was scared every day of my life, that I would be attacked and that I would never get ahead and I would be imprisoned because of who I was, where I lived and what I believed in.”

"So we have to help one another. It is time to mourn, then regroup and then reactivate, take action. Not violent action but a call to engage with local and state representatives who are there to serve us, and not their party. Bombard them with engagement...those of us who are holding our heads in disbelief still have power. Show the next generation that we can get through this together through passion and education and engagement.”

Irish Daily Mail reporter, a recent young journalist of the year, Séan Dunne told IrishCentral that it was Trump’s inexperience in the foreign policy area that was most concerning internationally.

“Trump has been hugely critical of NATO, which has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy for over 60 years. He has said in the past that America can no longer afford to protect countries in Europe - and in Asia - without adequate compensation, which suggests he may withdraw American forces unless they pay up so this is certainly a concern and one to watch.”

The impact of a Trump presidency on Ireland's economy was also a concern, Dunne said.

“Here in Ireland, we already are hearing from one of Donald Trump's top advisors that a “flood of companies” will leave Ireland under the president-elect's planned new tax regime.

“Electing Donald Trump President wasn’t just going to affect America but the ripples will be felt far and wide.”

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2016-11-14T05:39:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/why-i-may-move-to-ireland-after-trump-s-winWhy I may move to Ireland after Trump’s win2016-11-14T04:04:17-05:00Irish-American Kerry O’Shea is weighing her options following Tuesday’s outcome of the 2016 presidential election and victory for Donald J. Trump.

“I am seriously considering moving to Ireland, though, to point out, moving over there has always been in the back of my mind,” she said.

For a long time leading up to the election, and even prior to Trump’s securing the Republican nomination, I would say I’d ‘be gone’ should Trump win the election. I never thought he’d actually win it all.”

O’Shea, the daughter of an Irish immigrant, has an easy enough pathway to Irish citizenship.

“A couple months ago I submitted for my Irish passport as Trump surged ahead. I’ve always wanted to square away my Irish passport, but Trump was the catalyst. Now that he's been elected, it's time for me to seriously consider making the big move or not. Part of me wants to stay and see what I can do to help fight the good fight, the other part of me wants to get out of Dodge.”

Reflecting on watching the results come in, O’Shea says her hope for a Clinton presidency slowly began to diminish as a shocking reality sank in.

“I watched the election results roll in Tuesday evening in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx with my two Irish roommates. I was texting with my family while simultaneously explaining to my roommates that it was still early, and Trump's early lead would surely unwind as more results came in. As we know now, I was wrong.”

In addition to her family and friends stateside, O’Shea describes texting with a college-age cousin who lives in Ireland who was asking for updates about the election. “I’m terrified that he might get it and I’m not even in the States,” her cousin said earlier in the day on Tuesday.

“Wednesday felt like a haze. It just felt like common sense for Hillary Clinton, a prior senator and secretary of state, never mind former first lady, to win the position she is nearly overqualified for. Evidently I was not alone in that mindset as the popular vote was in Clinton’s favor.

“Is Hillary perfect? God no. But she has the diplomatic experience. She has dedicated her life to civil service. Trump has some real estate and a reality show. Would I have loved to see the first woman president elected this week? Of course. But, male or female, Hillary had Trump beat in experience by leaps and bounds.

“I find myself trying to empathize with Trump supporters but I’m finding it increasingly difficult. I can respect the notion of wanting to shake up the status quo in D.C., but this just doesn’t seem like the best route, or even a good route.

On a personal level, O’Shea describes finding difficulty in accepting Trump as a leader.

“Trump’s treatment of women - past and present - is abhorrent and offensive. His choice of Mike Pence as running mate makes me uneasy given Pence's history of anti-LGBT behavior. Further, the company you keep is generally a good marker of the type of person you are; the KKK enthusiastically endorsed Trump.”

“While I have no respect or trust for Trump as an individual, I am hopeful - for the sake of America - that he will steer us in the right direction. His position has my respect, he does not though.”

While cautiously hopeful, O’Shea is still weighing the benefit of moving to Ireland.

O’Shea concluded: “I think the coming days, weeks and yes four years will be a massive turning point for our country. I love America. I love that we're a country founded on immigrants, diversity and free speech. Trump, right now to me, through his actions and words, is a threat to that. I can only hope he won't steer us wrong.”

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Kerry O'Shea, 27, is an Irish-American native of New Jersey. The daughter of a Kerryman and granddaughter of Galway and Mayo natives, Kerry finds herself visiting Ireland at least once a year. Now a college graduate, Kerry lives in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx while working in New York City.

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2016-11-12T08:00:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/irish-american-dems-and-gop-on-trump-s-election-victoryIrish American Dems and GOP on Trump’s election victory 2016-11-12T06:20:16-05:00Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election and Donald Trump will be the new president of the United States.

It’s a simple enough sentence, but it’s one that half the US population is having a hard time processing.

He drew a parallel to Northern Ireland. “Much like peace in Northern Ireland requires finding common ground with economically and socially displaced Loyalists, political success in America requires understanding the concerns of people who fear the future as well as those who resent the past,” he said.

“When the Democratic Party loses broad support from white working class voters, it is a triumph of division, not diversity. Big tent coalitions win elections and solve problems. Ethnic focused strategies divide and threaten the whole community.”

John Fitzpatrick, owner of the Fitzpatrick Hotel Group in New York and Chairman of the American Ireland Fund, said that he was “Surprised, but not completely shocked.”

“If you read the polls over the last week since the first FBI announcement, you knew it was tight. I thought she’d win, but I never ruled him out of it. What was hard to factor in was that many Trump supporters were not willing to publicly share their voting preference with anyone, including the pollsters. That skewed the polls, I think.”

Fitzpatrick credited Trump with tapping into a feeling and a movement other politicians have ignored. “When you break it down, a lot of voters just really wanted a change and essentially staged revolt against traditional party politics. Donald Trump heard these voters more clearly than anyone else did.”

“I think that while it’s okay to be disappointed today, we have to respect the fact that the people have spoken. We have to accept it, and we have move on. Donald Trump won fair and square by democratic process. This long, divisive campaign is now over, and the American people have to come together as one and give the President-elect their support. Whatever fears you have, it would be much better for everyone if he were to be successful. We have to give him a chance.”

Morrison, who has specialized in immigration law a both an attorney and a congressman, offered words that were something of a salve to Trump’s campaign promises to immediately alter immigration legislation and begin mass deportations.

“As for immigration, the biggest certainty is that nothing is likely to change much in next several months,” he said. “Massive deportation has no budget constituency regardless of the campaign rhetoric. DAPA is dead and buried and DACA may well follow it to the grave. Comprehensive Reform as generally understood is not on the agenda. Prosecutorial discretion will gradually atrophy. If a Republican leader in Congress emerges who wants to ‘fix the problem’ advocates for a well-regulated immigration system and for relief for the unauthorized [they] need to swallow their pride and try to be part of the solution.

Fitzpatrick too expressed hope that Ireland and the Irish in America would be able to maintain a productive relationship with the Trump administration. “We’ve been very lucky as a group to have the ears of the last three presidents I’m hoping that the next administration will value Irish America, establish a dialogue with our leaders, hear our concerns, and take those concerns into consideration when establishing policy on issues affecting us.”

Trump’s previous promise for a hardline on immigration is not just a cause for concern among Irish American Democrats, however, as Republicans themselves question the possibility that he will attempt to follow through on certain worrying campaign policies.

Jeffrey Cleary, the Director of Governmental Relations for the Office of New York State Senator Kathleen A. Marchione and member of The Irish American Republicans, was not expecting a Trump win, even going so far as to say he was “quite embarrassed by an awful lot of what he [Trump] said.”

As a member of the Irish American Republican organization, he describes the group as experiencing a great divide in support throughout the primaries and so, “to keep peace,” the organization as a whole did not endorse the Republican candidate, although the State of Florida chapter gave the President-elect their support.

Although Cleary did not vote for Trump in this election, he now believes his vote to be available for him to win over the next four years, if he does the right thing.

“One of the things we're obviously concerned about is his immigration statements in the past,” Cleary said.

“We're going to be proposing for the first time that the Irish American Republicans form an immigration committee. We're going to sign onto a letter with other Irish organizations with our proposals, specifically dealing with Irish visas, and hopefully he's going to be receptive.

“He's said that he's got problems with certain hotspots where terrorism may come from. He may be open to doing visas for friendly, allied nations so we're going to make that proposal. Yet, if he goes overboard on immigration policy so that we feel that the immigrants in this country that was built by immigrants are mistreated, then we're going to speak out against him on it.”

Grant Lally, an attorney and former Chairperson of The Irish American Republicans, who declares Trump's election to be “a pleasant surprise for us,” also believes we may see a path to some form of legalization or legal residency for undocumented citizens under a Trump presidency.

“I think the problem of massive illegal immigration is recognized by both parties and although different political leaders have different approaches to dealing with the issue of illegal immigration, I think that there is a growing consensus, certainly among the Republicans, on how to deal with it,” Lally said.

“That included stronger border security and devising some system to bring people out of the shadows so that they can register and they can legalize.

“I believe that legalization which means having some kind of legal residency is definitely what both Donald Trump and what the congressional republican leadership have all pledged to do.”

Both Cleary and Lally echoed the sentiments of Democrat Fitzpatrick in the realization that Trump had the outlook of US party politics with the manner in which he won this election.

“I think Donald Trump was able to reach out to ordinary working American and to appeal and provide hope for a better future and for creating jobs and hope in America,” said Lally, while Cleary believes, “He certainly had some answers.”

“He recreated the map,” he continued. “He won places the Republicans hadn't won in a long time. He took some big things away from what was typically Democrats, most importantly, Pennsylvania but there's no doubt that he won this race.”

Although critical of Trump throughout the campaign as one of “two very flawed candidates,” Cleary is now hoping that the weight of office will have an impact on the way in which Trump presents his policies to the country.

“He said he wanted to repeal and replace Obamacare I think that's a very good thing,” he said.

“She [Clinton] was going to double down on it. He says he wants a middle-class tax cut, I think that's a very good idea. If he could do it without calling people stupid and insulting them I'd appreciate it.

“The last couple of days, his statement on election night, his meeting with the President today I think maybe he might be starting to feel the weight of the office and hopefully, he will live up to the weight of the office and the honor of the office and the dignity of the office.

“So, I'm not as down and out and holding my head, I'm hopeful, I'm hopeful that he will get it together and he'll be a good president and we'll certainly honor and respect the office if he does good.”

Lally describes himself as “excited” for the possibilities open to Republicans now.

“First and foremost this country has been in great recession or in a stagnant non-recovery for nearly a decade and what Donald Trump has pledged to do and what I think Republicans in Congress are hungry to do is reduce the burden of government on business and n working Americans to help get this economy going again,” he said.

I'm very excited about the opportunity as a Republican and as a former National Chairman of Irish American Republicans. I'm very excited about the possibility of enacting so many of the programs and reforms that we've wanted to do for decades but couldn't because of divided government which has, unfortunately, been the norm in the United States for most of the last quarter century.”

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2016-11-12T08:00:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/ireland-s-farmer-s-journal-had-the-best-trump-election-headlineIreland’s Farmers Journal had the best Trump election headline2016-11-14T11:46:00-05:00
“TRUMP TRIUMPHS” read the front page of the New York Times on morning after Election Day.

The Farmers Journal, Ireland’s long-standing source for farming news, took a slightly different approach.

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2016-11-11T15:07:00-05:00http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/cahirodoherty/how-did-donald-trump-persuade-so-many-white-americans-to-elect-himHow did Donald Trump persuade so many white Americans to elect him?2016-11-11T14:38:18-05:00
When I was studying in Belfast in the 1990s I remember vowing to myself that I would one day live in America.

It was because I was tired of living in a paranoid police state, where mistrust and suspicion was the coin of the realm.

I wanted to live somewhere free, I told myself, somewhere I could be myself, somewhere I would never see another barricade or hear another surveillance helicopter droning over my head all night long.

So I came to America and for a long time my plan worked out.

In the late 1990s America still meant endless highways, boundless promise, a place where I could be who I wanted to be, live wherever I wanted to live, love whomever I wanted to love.

Here, for the first time in my life, I felt free. I will never forget that feeling as long as I live.

But this week, just one night after Donald Trump’s election, I watched hundreds of armed police officers staring down thousands of angry protesters near Trump Tower at Columbus Circle in Manhattan. I saw men and women in the streets in tears. The police had put up barricades to protect the building from them.

Then I looked up because I heard a helicopter droning over my head, with its surveillance cameras trained on the crowds below.

Northern Ireland, with its sectarian politics, with its paranoid majority corralling every minority, with its deep mistrust and its military surveillance, and with its ever-present threat of violence, has followed me across the sea.

I am heartbroken to realize this. For the first time ever I have the sense of an ending.

How did this happen? How did big, openhearted America transform itself into the kind of paranoid fortress that I once fled?

It happened when we stopped seeing other immigrants as our friends and neighbors and started seeing them as enemy threats.

Rudy Giuliani is the poster boy for Trump’s “they’re coming for you” anti-immigrant five alarm fire for a reason. It was anti immigration sentiment that brought Trump’s most passionate voters to the voting booths in state after state, polls show.

To get them there Trump made a Faustian bargain that will one day be his undoing. He told middle class white voters that he would protect them from the swelling immigrant hordes. He told white working class voters he would protect their livelihoods. I am the only one who can save you, he told them, just make me president. So they did.

Over 80% of white evangelical and born-again Christians voted for him, Mormons gave him Utah, he won a majority of the white Irish Catholic vote.

So he rose on a tide of racial anxiety, not on an economic one. He won the backing of America’s white and wealthy voters including white graduates, and white female voters. He also won the backing of the white working class.

You have to be living in a lot of fear to believe that a New York City billionaire will see and protect you. Apparently they were. So we are where we are.

But this racial targeting, this dangerous Faustian bargain, has come at a profound cost to our national fabric, because we are an immigrant nation and Trump has had to tear up its foundational promise of equal treatment to become president.

The first place you will see the nation’s horrified reaction is in the streets. It’s already happening. Unprecedented numbers of protesters have already taken to them.

The next place you’ll see it is in the schoolyards. Your kid in kindergarten is going to turn to the Mexican kid and tell him he's going home when the wall comes.

Your teenagers will feel safe to bait the gay kid and the trans kid and the Muslim kid. And they will do this, bet your last dollar, because yesterday they lived in America where minorities were welcome but today they live in Trump Land, where they are not.

If you don't know how damaging this will be to America yet you are going to very soon because if you voted for Trump you just made the most spectacular and life-defining mistake of your life.

Shots weren't fired, but it was a civil war of sorts. The uncle who sat tight lipped across from you at the Thanksgiving table that time you brought your same sex boyfriend home has finally spoken. Your aunt who would have preferred you not to date a Muslim girl spoke too. No need to tell you of their anxieties, they let the vote tally speak for itself.

On CNN today water boarding (an international war crime) was listed as one of President Trump’s top priorities alongside repealing Obamacare and building a Mexican border wall.

The gloves will come off on the tens of thousands of immigrants living in the shadows here too. The message from the Trump White House will be stark: you can't have a raise, you can't have health care, you can’t have social security, but see those immigrants? We’re deporting them! They will tell us this is progress.

So what consoles me now in this season of dread is that this 'victory' already feels short lived and pyrrhic. It’s already over before it’s begun.

I’m not foolish. I’m not one of those observers assuring you that it will all be OK. That’s what people trapped in an abuse cycle with a bully tell themselves. I don’t believe it. None of this is politics as usual, Trump is not a typical politician, none of this is going to be OK.

What consoles me after eight years of immensely dignified and progressive presidential leadership, Obama voters - millennials in particular - will not be stepping into Trump's Brexit style time machine to join him in his race into the past.

I won’t be either. I want to live in freedom. I remember what it looks and feels like.